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007
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 2684
Location: UK/Veteran of the Magic Kingdom
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 Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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| veiledsentiments wrote: |
| There is way too much of this type of racist post on this board... from many... including the anti-western tripe from the likes of 007...VS |
I am not an anti-West. I am against uncle Sam and his associates's double standards politics and policies in the Middle East. I am a great friend to the peaceful American people, especially the ones who promote peace and asking for the US troops to be back home.
In education, we have to abide with 'Equal Opportunities' which are established by the West, but unfortuantely not applied in some of the Gulf countries, as well in some part of Uncle Sam's magic land. |
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Zola6666
Joined: 22 Apr 2007
Posts: 34
Location: Erewhon
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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| Sorry to disagree with you, Veiled Sentiments.... It was his form of punctuation. I also see it quite often in my students' writing and I have to unteach this bad habit. |
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007
Joined: 30 Oct 2006
Posts: 2684
Location: UK/Veteran of the Magic Kingdom
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Zola6666 wrote: |
| .. he's the one with the PhD! He's the Arabic speaker. |
I guess his PhD is from Zagazig, Ain-Shams, or Al-Mansourah university?
Again, it seems the Dean of your college is not doing his job properly and allowing HOD to sleep in his office!!!!!!! |
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Zola6666
Joined: 22 Apr 2007
Posts: 34
Location: Erewhon
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 7:05 pm Post subject: |
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| The HOD sleeping in his office is not in Salalah. It's another college. The HOD here is pretty good. |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 7:13 pm Post subject: |
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That is a typing error... not an "English" error...
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It's a punctuation error. It's only a typing error if they don't do it on purpose. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 9:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Zola6666 wrote: |
| Sorry to disagree with you, Veiled Sentiments.... It was his form of punctuation. I also see it quite often in my students' writing and I have to unteach this bad habit. |
Sorry Zola and Stephen
It is not a punctuation error or an English error... it is only taught in keyboarding or typing classes. I have NEVER seen this covered in any English teaching textbook of any level in the Gulf.
I have always taught it because it is a pet peeve of this English teacher who is also a qualified typing instructor (back from the days when they called it typing). I have encountered both Americans and British English teachers who make this error regularly and intentionally, and when I pointed it out, they had never heard of it. Invariably it is because they are self-taught typists/keyboarders.
One well known poster here who did it regularly in the past was JohnSlat and when I pointed it out to him by PM, he was shocked to learn that he had taught himself to do it incorrectly for all those years.
It is not a punctuation error because they have put the comma or full stop in the correct place... it is a keyboarding error to put a space in front of it.
VS |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 6:46 am Post subject: |
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| Invariably it is because they are self-taught typists/keyboarders. |
Even when they do it in handwritten letters?
Why does it happen with around 50% of Indians and 0.1% of Brits and Americans and French and Germans?
Perhaps VS you ought to repeat this mantra every morning: "There are some things I have not experienced." |
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kuberkat
Joined: 03 Jun 2005
Posts: 358
Location: Oman
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| Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 11:03 am Post subject: |
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| The tragedy of PhDs is that their validity does not depend so much on the university as on the owner, according to my observations. I have seen brilliant and wise owners of Third World PhDs, but I have also seen the consequence of increasing desperation of private universities for foreign postgrad students. The UK unis are a case in point: fees for foreign students are double that of UK citizens. How can they refuse? I recently sat through a conference presentation of the utmost drivel presented by a high-profile PhD (this time a foreign grad from a US uni). Things finally came together in her conclusion, but unfortunately the sudden absence of grammatical vertigo and overall absence of citations suggested that the consistent bits might not have been her own. Spine-chilling. |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 2:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Stephen Jones wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Invariably it is because they are self-taught typists/keyboarders. |
Even when they do it in handwritten letters?
Why does it happen with around 50% of Indians and 0.1% of Brits and Americans and French and Germans?
Perhaps VS you ought to repeat this mantra every morning: "There are some things I have not experienced." |
Goodness Stephen... obviously I have already experienced it and pointed that out. Perhaps you should admit that you also don't know all. This shows that in India they do not teach standard American/British system of editing and typesetting in English. Thus it is a formatting error - not a language or punctuation error.
VS |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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You've now changed from 'keyboarding error' aka typo, to 'formatting error'. You previously stated it was the result of hunt and peck typing; you have now recanted and stated it is the result of different national styles (which is what I had stated in the first place). As I said, if it happens in handwritten texts, it can't be a result of typesetting.
It's obviously different from formatting discussions as to whether you have a double space or a single space after a full stop. (Here is a link to an excellent discussion on that very matter: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=113702 |
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veiledsentiments
Joined: 20 Feb 2003
Posts: 17644
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 8:17 pm Post subject: |
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duh... formating of text is what is discussed and taught in keyboarding class... not in English class. As I said, it is neither an English error, nor a punctuation error. So, I have changed nothing.
Traditionally there has always been two spaces after the full stop. It is the internet age which has brought about the idea that there should be only one. Personally I am against it because I think the double space facilitates reading.
VS |
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Stephen Jones
Joined: 21 Feb 2003
Posts: 4124
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| Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| It is the internet age which has brought about the idea that there should be only one. Personally I am against it because I think the double space facilitates reading. |
The double space comes from manual typwriters with fixed-width fonts. Word processors have variable fonts and thus can be more precise with the spacing. The thread I linked to had a long and highly informed discussion of the matter.
However narrow the space is VS you're still trying to wiggle through it. You originally stated that the problem of a space before commas came from hunt-and-peck typists.
Reverse the situation.If a student didn't leave a space after a punctuation mark,as I am failing to do in this sentence,would you say it was a keyboarding mistake or a punctuation mistake?Whataboutspacesbetweenwords? |
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