As Gabriel García Márquez, the great Columbian Nobel prize winner, once said: Jubilemos la ortografía, terror del ser humano. Let us retire spelling, terror of the human being from the cradle.
On 8/13/07, Richard Heck <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Stefano Baroni wrote: > > I do not like on the fly spellcheck either (among other nuisances, it > > forces me to change the default language everytime I switch from one > > language to another). However: 1) when writing short letters it may be > > useful; 2) I do not think it is a good idea to tell people what they > > should like and what they shouldn't. Just an opinion ... > What they like is up to them. But I teach writing, so I think I get to > tell people what helps with writing and what does not. > > rh > > SB > > > > On Aug 13, 2007, at 6:44 PM, Richard Heck wrote: > > > >> Sam Lewis wrote: > >>>> Of course. And anyone who wants to code this can do so. This was in > >>>> response to the suggestion that LyX lacked this incredibly > >>>> wonderful and painfully obvious feature. My point was that it isn't > >>>> obviously wonderful. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that, if you > >>>> think you want it, you're either wrong or not very focused on > >>>> writing. But to each his or her own. > >>>> > >>> Thanks Richard for the discursive effort! I'm seriously > >>> reconsidering my > >>> understanding of WYSIWYG and its typesetting counterpart. I used to > >>> think that > >>> focusing on writing means also paying attention to the order of > >>> letters, rather > >>> than assuming that this something to do with "style". > >>> > >> No offense intended. But the point is an important one, anyway. I > >> actually do think that paying too much attention to the order of the > >> letters impedes writing. If I'm trying to write a paragraph and know > >> I'm going to change it half a dozen times (at least), why do I care > >> whether each word has been spelled correctly? That's clean-up, to be > >> done once I've got the damn thing moderately stable. (That's why I > >> still write so much with pen and paper, because it's the only way I > >> know to really get rid of ALL the distractions.) Writing is hard, and > >> I am firmly convinced that the tools we have grown accustomed to do > >> not make our lives easier. Those bad habits are hard to unlearn, > >> especially if you're not even aware you've got them. > >> > >> If I'm just writing a letter, then maybe that's different, but even > >> then I'm not sure, actually. > >>> Either way, one thing for sure out of this discussion is that > >>> perhaps the > >>> boundaries between "style" and "mere writing" are not as clear cut. > >>> Also, of > >>> course, if your texts consists of many formula or a mass of strings > >>> of letters > >>> which are not in your dictionary, a on the fly spellcheck becomes > >>> utterly > >>> pointless (yes distracting!) and should be switched off. However, > >>> this is > >>> exactly what I was trying to say with my (in hindsight probably not > >>> very clever) > >>> example of "humanities" writing. For some people, there might not be > >>> much > >>> distraction (in form of occasional wavily lines), but rather a > >>> continually > >>> indication of your document writing status, which I consider is a > >>> basic feature. > >>> > >> Maybe this is true of some documents, and maybe it'd be nice at some > >> very late stage of the game, when you're just doing clean-up. But I > >> just offer the suggestion that a continual indication of the status > >> of a document that is very much in flux is worse than useless. > >> > >> Richard > >> > >> --================================================================== > >> Richard G Heck, Jr > >> Professor of Philosophy > >> Brown University > >> http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ > >> ================================================================== > >> Get my public key from http://sks.keyserver.penguin.de > >> Hash: 0x1DE91F1E66FFBDEC > >> Learn how to sign your email using Thunderbird and GnuPG at: > >> http://dudu.dyn.2-h.org/nist/gpg-enigmail-howto > > > > --- > > Stefano Baroni - SISSA & DEMOCRITOS National Simulation Center - > > Trieste > > [+39] 040 3787 406 (tel) -528 (fax) / stefanobaroni (skype) > > > > Please, if possible, don't send me MS Word or PowerPoint attachments > > Why? See: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html > > > > > > > > > > > -- > ================================================================== > Richard G Heck, Jr > Professor of Philosophy > Brown University > http://frege.brown.edu/heck/ > ================================================================== > Get my public key from http://sks.keyserver.penguin.de > Hash: 0x1DE91F1E66FFBDEC > Learn how to sign your email using Thunderbird and GnuPG at: > http://dudu.dyn.2-h.org/nist/gpg-enigmail-howto > > -- ------------------------------------------------- Julio Rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED]
