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February 1996, Week 3

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Subject:
From:
Mike Frank <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Film and TV Studies Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 20 Feb 1996 20:55:56 -0400
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in re the following post and the ones to which it was responding . . . .
 
***ORIGINAL MESSAGE***
> >
> > I cannot believe the seriousness of now two posts concerning the spelling
> > of one person's post.
>
> Bravo!  I'm so glad someone finally came out and said this.  I found these
> complaints even more scandalous than those messages a few weeks back
> prescribing the "proper usage" of Screen-L, and bemoaning the substitition
> of on-line information exchange for "good, old-fashioned books."
>
> If we want to insist that interactions on Screen-L proceed according to
> traditional academic conventions, let me suggest that--if only for the sake of
> consistency--we save the fascistic pedantry for the graduate seminars,
> and the bombastic viciousness for the faculty meetings.
 
***END OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE***
 
 . . . . the issue had NOTHING to do with spelling per se . . . it had
everything to do with the seriousness with which one ought to take a post
that insists, without evidence or support, that the usa has more prisons
than schools . . . one wonders just how seriously to take that kind of claim,
and by extension one wonders how seriously the writer of the claim takes
her/his audience . . .
        . . . there's a hell of a lot self-righteously polemical
posturing on these lists [it's something academics tend to be pretty damned
good at] and often enough--as comp teachers know all too well--slovenly
syntax can point to the difference between a carefully thought out idea and a
sloppily formulated one . . . spelling is no doubt just a matter of
convention  [though i'm not convinced it follows that those who care about it
are "fascist pedants"]  but syntax is not a matter of convention, it's a
matter of meaning, hence of thinking . . . is caring about clear thought
pedantic, and is pointing out its absence vicious?    i imagine not . . . but
in any case it's not the same as carping about spelling errors
 
mike frank
 
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