212 Comments
User's avatar
⭠ Return to thread
Shelley's avatar

Growing up our father used to correct our use of language all the time. Sometimes mom did too. Then I started with my children and mentioned it's demeaning to your intelligence and to my acute hearing to mimic poor use of words. Truly I will never accommodate "ain't got no". Mistakes in writing like-sounding words - there, their, they’re are common. I’m guilty of that because my proofing entails reading what I ‘thought’ I wrote. James, you are off the hook!

Expand full comment
James Lord's avatar

Many written formats like MS Word use an auto-correct function, which I often stubbornly override. But this feature does little to teach us.

Perhaps one day Mr. Gates will roll out an AI correction device for vocalized communication. Little electric shocks administered through our collars. He'll really teach us good. ZZZZZT. I mean well.

Expand full comment
James Lord's avatar

Language is a rich art. I always thought I had a pretty good command, but in these last ten years or so, I've often resorted to checking usage rules, only to find that I've been making mistakes all this time.

Even the great ones weren't perfect. If you go back and read "The Great Gatsby," you'll see characters who said "could of" instead of "could have." And Fitzgerald's not alone.

Expand full comment
Mike's avatar

Just be sure you aren't using too new a source for verifying the rules. I wouldn't trust some of them.

Expand full comment
James Lord's avatar

Defeating MS Word’s auto-correct is my act of rebellion.

Expand full comment
Nealstar's avatar

Just turn it off.

Expand full comment
Nealstar's avatar

How do you like "preventative"?

Expand full comment
Mike's avatar

It fits right in with the idea to preventate mechanical failure by using proper maintainanence procedures.

Expand full comment
James Lord's avatar

Using the correct torquation for all attachmentative hardware is critical.

Expand full comment
Nealstar's avatar

I'm glad I wasn't drinking coffee at that moment. Military or industrial sector? You've been included in my 740 page (and growing) "Quotes" file.

Expand full comment
Mike's avatar
Jun 2Edited

Military, manufacturing, educational mgmt, then back to manufacturing.

740 pages?! WOW!

Expand full comment
Nealstar's avatar

If it's manufacturing, you may like this one:

"The most prevalent inadequacy found in our audits is the failure to recognize that timely production of high quality components requires almost infinite capacity for painstaking care and attention to detail by all elements of the organization, both management and non-management.”

--'The Never Ending Challenge', 44th Annual National Metals Congress, New York, 29 October 1962

I'm a life-long reader and generally clock about 1200 hours/year online and the old analog book things. After over 3/4 century, I've developed advanced CRS and if I don't write things down, they evaporate.

Expand full comment
Mike's avatar

That's great! And so appropriate to come from someone like an auditor that's getting paid for it. That must have been a creative mind to come up with that.

From 1962? Well, that makes me feel a little better. If we've been dealing with those 'troubles' since at least then, we're probably still going to be able to cope.

If CRS is what I think it is, sorry to see that it's advanced. I think my whole family lives with it. We keep 3M in the black, I'm sure. (post-it-notes EVERYWHERE) My Mom always said a sure-fire way to remember something or where something was left, is to go look in the fridge. That's obviously 'something or somewhere else' than what I wanted to remember, and while there, it should come to me.

Expand full comment
Nealstar's avatar

Short description is that my mind is like an infinite number of scraps of paper in a wind tunnel (true Random Access Memory) and sometimes I can just snatch the thought out of the maelstrom immediately or in 20 minutes or 2 days. Like you, I have notes on paper, but very few post-it-notes, just two piles on either side of my monitor stand for immediate and for long term, a "Quotes" file, and to do and appts. is MS Outlook.

Expand full comment
Shelley's avatar

Best use is by planned parenthood's "how to plan your family" . . . it is meant to prevent a failure just like Mike's post.

Expand full comment