<HTML>In a message dated 11/20/00 11:51:58 AM Central Standard Time, dnereson@dimensional.com (Dave Nereson) writes: <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">I guess my beef about spelling and grammar is that when it's bad, especially in printed matter like the Journal or even in the bylaws or exam manuals, it makes us look unedjamacated, when one one of the goals of PTG is to increase the professional image of the piano technician.   On this list, it doesn't matter so much, I guess,   since e-mail is here today and deleted tomorrow.   It's just that I've noticed a dramatic increase in bad spelling everywhere in recent years, including among doctors and other professional types.  At first I thought it was just the Gen-Xers and the decline in quality of teaching in public schools, or too much emphasis on computers and reliance on spell-checkers instead of a solid grounding in the "three R's", but it's becoming ubiquitous of late. <FO! NT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"></BLOCKQUOTE> I also feel that good language use is important but there are many who will outwardly say that they really don't care.  I think the increase that you see in poor writing is because you're seeing *more* writing.  The computer allows you to see the writing of countless numbers of people whose writing you may not ever have otherwise seen. Both written and spoken language evolve because of influences upon them.   American written English has dropped the "u" from "color" and "honor", and it is common to see "night" as "nite", "light" as "lite", "through" as "thru", "plough" as "plow", "doughnut" as "donut", etc.  These changes mostly occurred in the last 50 years.  Just think what kind of influence computers, which are still very new to most people, has had on the way people write in cryptic shorthand. I think we're in for some revamping of the entire system and that in say 30 years or so, reading the Journal of today will be about as foreign as reading Shakespeare or the King James Bible is for us today.  Soon, "I thought I heard him coughing throughout the night" will be written, "I thot I herd him koffing thruout the nite".  People will stop complaining about it and accept it. Bill Bremmer RPT Madison, Wisconsin P.S.  Even my spell checker had no problem with "lite", "thru" and "plow".</HTML>