Wat happened to the English language?
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
I couldn't agree more. And for your info: It's not just English. I see the same in the Danish newspapers, and I'm really upset that nobody seems to care about spelling and grammar anymore. I blame smartphones and txtspeech... :sigh:
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain -
I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
Stuff that's written online tends to be written online. So it relies on online spell checkers, but rarely grammar checks. I cringe every time I see "lead" instead of "led", "principal" instead of "principle", and worst of all "could of" instead of "could have" etc. But part of the reason, at least in the UK, is down to what is being taught in schools and universities. Once they abandoned the formal teaching of rules and replaced it with free thinking then spelling and grammar were no longer known. So you had a generation (or more than one) that never learned these things but still became employed as writers and editors. Microsoft word has a lot to answer for. As do all similar applications.
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
I blame TxtSpk - it encourages people to get it wrong bcos its qikr bt u no wat i syng And punctuation is for losers! The Militant Wing of the Apostrophe Protection Society shall hear of this! :laugh:
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Stuff that's written online tends to be written online. So it relies on online spell checkers, but rarely grammar checks. I cringe every time I see "lead" instead of "led", "principal" instead of "principle", and worst of all "could of" instead of "could have" etc. But part of the reason, at least in the UK, is down to what is being taught in schools and universities. Once they abandoned the formal teaching of rules and replaced it with free thinking then spelling and grammar were no longer known. So you had a generation (or more than one) that never learned these things but still became employed as writers and editors. Microsoft word has a lot to answer for. As do all similar applications.
Richard MacCutchan wrote:
you had a generation (or more than one) that never learned these things but still became employed as writers and editors.
... and teachers ... :sigh:
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
This is part of world digitalization. The target nowadays is to get the information transmitted quickly, disregarding the formatting. If I tell you that your smart, you got the message, even though I used your instead of your're. Grammar is eventually only important to those who consider it important, and fact is that it is not important to transmit content. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy reading a text free of mistakes, but it is because I am an old fart whom it was taught that writing correctly was as important as the content of the message itself. This is not true anymore : in no times there will be nobody anymore shocked by texts full of mistakes - the checkers will be as ignorant as the writers.
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I blame TxtSpk - it encourages people to get it wrong bcos its qikr bt u no wat i syng And punctuation is for losers! The Militant Wing of the Apostrophe Protection Society shall hear of this! :laugh:
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Richard MacCutchan wrote:
It's "
it's" not "its".FTFY! :-D
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
John R. Shaw wrote:
what we writwrote makes sense.
John R. Shaw wrote:
Have fun taringtearing apart the above
Pots and Kettles... To answer your rant, most publishers no longer employ editors or proofreaders. They rely on the spelling correction and grammar in word processors, which -as long as English is not replaced by LOGLAN - will never be perfect.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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Richard MacCutchan wrote:
It's "
it's" not "its".FTFY! :-D
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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John R. Shaw wrote:
what we writwrote makes sense.
John R. Shaw wrote:
Have fun taringtearing apart the above
Pots and Kettles... To answer your rant, most publishers no longer employ editors or proofreaders. They rely on the spelling correction and grammar in word processors, which -as long as English is not replaced by LOGLAN - will never be perfect.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
-
This is part of world digitalization. The target nowadays is to get the information transmitted quickly, disregarding the formatting. If I tell you that your smart, you got the message, even though I used your instead of your're. Grammar is eventually only important to those who consider it important, and fact is that it is not important to transmit content. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy reading a text free of mistakes, but it is because I am an old fart whom it was taught that writing correctly was as important as the content of the message itself. This is not true anymore : in no times there will be nobody anymore shocked by texts full of mistakes - the checkers will be as ignorant as the writers.
Rage wrote:
writing correctly was as important as the content of the message itself. This is not true anymore
"Let's eat grandma" or "Let's eat, grandma" Punctuation saves lives!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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:-O
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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Stuff that's written online tends to be written online. So it relies on online spell checkers, but rarely grammar checks. I cringe every time I see "lead" instead of "led", "principal" instead of "principle", and worst of all "could of" instead of "could have" etc. But part of the reason, at least in the UK, is down to what is being taught in schools and universities. Once they abandoned the formal teaching of rules and replaced it with free thinking then spelling and grammar were no longer known. So you had a generation (or more than one) that never learned these things but still became employed as writers and editors. Microsoft word has a lot to answer for. As do all similar applications.
I'm not even English and I cringe every time I see "there", "their" and "they're" being used wrongly.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
Hate to brag*, but I'm a published author. Before I handed in a chapter to my editor I double checked if everything was correct. My editor barely made any corrections, and when he did make a suggestion it was often something weird like "maybe you can explain what 'x' is or maybe not, your call." At one point I got another editor and he read the already edited chapters as well, still no corrections. When my book was published and I got the physical copy I was proud. I opened my book on a random page and the first thing I noticed was a #@$&#!@^&^&! TYPO! :mad: :laugh: This was written and double checked by me, two editors, a technical editor and finally someone who does a final check on spelling and grammar. What I think is happening here is that everyone thinks the next person is going to fix it, but that person thinks the same. That sort of behavior happens everywhere. For example, the piles under my house were too short and my house started to sink into the ground (during construction, luckily). The piling(?) company, the construction company, local authorities, some overarching builders group, and I think three more parties looked at a plan to fix it and came to an agreement. The plan failed and in hindsight it never could've worked. Seven(!) parties did no do their job and an entire row of houses had to be demolished in order to get good piles into the ground (they went from 6 m to 21 m, so go figure). If that happens to a row of houses it could sure as hell happen to some book or article that may or may not be read. OK, I love it, but I'm obliged to say that if I don't want to sound like a douche ;p
Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
John R. Shaw wrote:
Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes
Nice challenge. :)
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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I'm not even English and I cringe every time I see "there", "their" and "they're" being used wrongly.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Exactly so, and the problem is just compounded by the fact that non-English speaking children, like you, get taught the rules. I used to support our European teams, both remotely and via customer visits in my last job. I was always impressed with the standards of spoken and written English. And when someone was not sure how to use the correct word or phrase, they would always ask first.
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Hate to brag*, but I'm a published author. Before I handed in a chapter to my editor I double checked if everything was correct. My editor barely made any corrections, and when he did make a suggestion it was often something weird like "maybe you can explain what 'x' is or maybe not, your call." At one point I got another editor and he read the already edited chapters as well, still no corrections. When my book was published and I got the physical copy I was proud. I opened my book on a random page and the first thing I noticed was a #@$&#!@^&^&! TYPO! :mad: :laugh: This was written and double checked by me, two editors, a technical editor and finally someone who does a final check on spelling and grammar. What I think is happening here is that everyone thinks the next person is going to fix it, but that person thinks the same. That sort of behavior happens everywhere. For example, the piles under my house were too short and my house started to sink into the ground (during construction, luckily). The piling(?) company, the construction company, local authorities, some overarching builders group, and I think three more parties looked at a plan to fix it and came to an agreement. The plan failed and in hindsight it never could've worked. Seven(!) parties did no do their job and an entire row of houses had to be demolished in order to get good piles into the ground (they went from 6 m to 21 m, so go figure). If that happens to a row of houses it could sure as hell happen to some book or article that may or may not be read. OK, I love it, but I'm obliged to say that if I don't want to sound like a douche ;p
Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly
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Hate to brag*, but I'm a published author. Before I handed in a chapter to my editor I double checked if everything was correct. My editor barely made any corrections, and when he did make a suggestion it was often something weird like "maybe you can explain what 'x' is or maybe not, your call." At one point I got another editor and he read the already edited chapters as well, still no corrections. When my book was published and I got the physical copy I was proud. I opened my book on a random page and the first thing I noticed was a #@$&#!@^&^&! TYPO! :mad: :laugh: This was written and double checked by me, two editors, a technical editor and finally someone who does a final check on spelling and grammar. What I think is happening here is that everyone thinks the next person is going to fix it, but that person thinks the same. That sort of behavior happens everywhere. For example, the piles under my house were too short and my house started to sink into the ground (during construction, luckily). The piling(?) company, the construction company, local authorities, some overarching builders group, and I think three more parties looked at a plan to fix it and came to an agreement. The plan failed and in hindsight it never could've worked. Seven(!) parties did no do their job and an entire row of houses had to be demolished in order to get good piles into the ground (they went from 6 m to 21 m, so go figure). If that happens to a row of houses it could sure as hell happen to some book or article that may or may not be read. OK, I love it, but I'm obliged to say that if I don't want to sound like a douche ;p
Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly
Sander Rossel wrote:
but I'm obliged to say that if I don't want to sound like a douche
That's not how it works. :-\
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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I have read books written over a hundred years ago that had no grammar or spelling errors. That is just good editing. I sometimes take a long time in responding to emails or online questiona in an attempt to avoid errors (unfortunately they still occur). The issue I am addressing now has to do with language, syntax/grammar. At first I thought the description of movies/shows (no matter how old) was because someone with English as a second language was writing it (part of the time). Then I started to see a trend, it was not just the people writing movies description, but people writing books and news articles. The most important one being news articles. These where obviously people who grew up with the language and simply do not understand it or are unwilling to put in the effort to do it correctly. With books (and news) I understand; you just start writing and let if flow, but the misspellings and grammar issues should be corrected before publishing. But it is reaching a ridiculous extent; are their employers just ignorant or just don't care (more likely they are just as ignorant or think we are). Sorry, that is my little rant. I just read a news article that was missing words (which required me to fill in the blanks) and also appeared to be incorrect (where's the editor?). And those responsible for verifying the validity of their statements. Technically; I do not speak English, I speak American, but expect people writing in that language to actually understand it or at least have someone editing (verifying) that what we writ makes sense. That's enough, I got carried away (2:59 AM), when I read something, I expect to understand without having to insert missing word, etc.. Have fun taring apart the above, as I had no editor and made now effort to correct mistakes, but I am also not publishing a (so called) professional article.
INTP "Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra "I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
