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In various fora, we have the usual debate (which has been going on on USENET since, I think, about the third post there) as to the importance of good spelling, grammar, paragraphing, etc. As reactionary and uncreative as it may sound (a sound which is commensurate with my age and rearing), I must come down firmly on the side of the Writing Police. Assuming that the purpose of writing something is not just to luxuriate in the appearance of one's own words in pixels (i.e., Jennblogging), but to convey an actual message to someone (and hopefully to change his mind -- although he may, like Trotsky, find that getting something through his skull is fatal), then actually writing in such a way that the reader may understand it is paramount. Bad spelling, bad punctuation, bad grammar, bad paragraph -- in short, murky, unclear writing -- interferes with that communication. Whilst may hope that the reader is not hoping to passively absorb what is on the page or the screen, but putting forth some effort, at a certain point she will say, "There's actually nothing here that's worth my investing time and effort in". The Holy One blessed be He knows that I am not perfect in this (or any other) regard. Still, I feel that I invest a reasonable amount of time and effort in being legible and literate. A writer who does not, but drops his words, like a cat defecating, any old way that occurs to him, and them demands that I spend time sorting them out and cleaning them up in my mind, trying to figure what, in anything, he has said, reminds me of nothing so much as a sullen teenager whining, "I didn't ask to be born". (To which my response is: That makes two of us, since I didn't ask for you to born, either.) I believe that this is one of Larry Niven's writing rules: "If you have nothing to say, say it any way you want. If you do have something to say, say it so that any misunderstanding is the reader's fault, not yours". John "Akatsukami" Braue Tuesday, April 16, 2002 |
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