[ARC5] Some nonsense about drifts and the English language. (Was bearings for DM-28 dynamotors)

[Bruce Long via ARC5]

I was briefly - two years- on the faculty of a regionally prominent college.  They had an undergraduate writing program and of course an undergraduate writing program administrator who send several really badly written campus wide emails each week.  The emails contained really obvious grammatical mistakes and were often ambiguous to boot and of course written in pompous, third person passive.

I'd re-write them to make them understandable and send them back to her.
I also had a short correspondence with the director of the campus sustainability initiative who sent a campus wide email telling everyone to turn off their computers when not in use since each one consumed 300 to 500 kiloWatts per hour- obviously confusing Watt-hours with kiloWatt hours.
And then there was the campus wide email from the campus recycling director who claimed recycling the food waste on campus to compose saved the university $70,000 dollars per year ( without including the capital and labor cost of the program)
Ok I'm don't venting
To bring this back on topic one of the several things I enjoy about this email list is pretty much everyone writes clearly and unambiguously often on quite complicated topics.  Well done guys.  Campus writing program directors could learn a lot by your example.



      From: John Saxon <johnbsaxon at yahoo.com>
 To: Bruce Long <coolbrucelong at yahoo.com>; Leslie Smith <vk2bcu at operamail.com>; AKLDGUY . <neilb0627 at gmail.com>; ARC-5 List <arc5 at mailman.qth.net> 
 Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 12:15 PM
 Subject: Re: [ARC5] Some nonsense about drifts and the English language. (Was bearings for DM-28 dynamotors)
   
While we're on the subject I will jump in...
I have an aunt who was a middle school English teacher for many years.  If she found a grammatical error in the local newspaper she would contact the paper and correct them.  She saw an ad from a Mexican restaurant that had a comma error.  She contacted the restaurant to discover that the person who wrote the ad was.........a former student of hers  :-)
--John 
    

  From: Bruce Long via ARC5 <arc5 at mailman.qth.net>
 To: Leslie Smith <vk2bcu at operamail.com>; AKLDGUY . <neilb0627 at gmail.com>; ARC-5 List <arc5 at mailman.qth.net> 
 Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 10:28 AM
 Subject: Re: [ARC5] Some nonsense about drifts and the English language. (Was bearings for DM-28 dynamotors)
   
I agree with you and Mrs Collins The English language is a precision instrument and should be used as such.
My father was a machinist and I remember him correcting me when I was taling about removing a pin using a punch.  He told me the proper tool was a drift, a fact i have remembered since.