The relevance of grammar

[L. Adrian Griffis]

On Thu, 7 Aug 2003, Kurt wrote:
> I am not one for kontroversee, but who give a fuck
> about grammer?

Some of the people who interview you might.  That's
the thing that started off this thread.  A cluster
of many grammatical mistakes in one paragraph can
definitely make a bad first impression.  You can
shoot off your mouth all day about how much you don't
care about grammar;  You can affect moral indignation
at people who do.  All that won't change the fact
that persistent grammatical carelessness makes you
sound ignorant, and sounding ignorant is not a good
idea in a field where your intellectual skills are
so important.

Anyone who catches grammatical mistakes in my
postings is welcome to point them out, both to me
and to the list.  I'd rather you folks caught them
and pointed them out before I get a chance to 
repeat them to the next group that interviews me.
And I'm perfectly willing to let my mistakes be
used to help educate those that are more sensitive
about people pointing out their mistakes.  Anyone
on the list who feels different about their mistakes
ought to stop being so sensitive;  Sounding like you
have a clue really does matter to your career.  We
all make occasional grammatical mistakes, but getting
touchy about having them pointed out is childish,
and declaring that grammatical mistakes don't matter
is just plain clueless.  If your ignorance embarrasses
you, fix it;  Don't try to cover up your embarrassment
by declaring that the people who noticed your ignorance
are the problem, else we'll be seeing an "I AM OUT!"
message from you, too.

Adrian