[WikiEN-l] poor writing skills of some non-english speaking wiki contributors

[Toby Bartels]

Stevertigo wrote in part:

>Proper English is a product of specialization.
>English is not the property of English speakers, but a lingua franca that
>everyone owns. Hence, its destined to become simplified - phonetic - scratch
>that - fonetic speling iz tha furst thing laikli tu hapen tu English - or it
>should. Someday soon.

I disagree.
A spelling reform is unlikely to be accepted by teachers
without some authority's recognising it officially.
Since there is no plausible such authority now
(unlike in the days of Noah Webster for Americans),
standard English spelling will continue to be taught,
and thus it will continue to be used.

>All that registered - I dislike the tone of enforcing propriety. It smacks
>of elitism.
>The articles that Ive seen - written in funky English - are generally
>intelligible - and If I come across one, Ill usually take time to edit it.

And so JTDirl will edit it as well.  He'll even seek them out! ^_^

>If someone wants to make it their perorgative to take this on as a task -
>and to enlist other in it, then so be it. Bat formalaizing som kaind ov
>Englo-defensyzm is the most tryvial of persuts. If that was the spirit in
>which this was raised.

I'm not sure that it was -- RK may have some points along that line --
but let JTDirl seek out articles whose grammar and spelling to correct.
You don't need to do it as well, and he doesn't have to involve us;
now that he's publicised his efforts, we can all do our own thing.


-- Toby