[WikiEN-l] "Well-known"

[Steve Bennett]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 2:06 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> One can hardly call a respect for good grammar pedantry.

If by "respect", you mean, congratulating those that use "good
grammar", then I don't disagree. If, otoh, you mean, "fixing" minor
errors or criticising mistakes...then yes "one can".

> The quality of information is diminished when it is expressed by imprecise language.

"Most well known" is hardly an example of that. There are probably
even examples of grammatical incorrectness which are more precise than
what is "correct". I'm not even sure that precision and correct
grammar are all that correlated.

> Good grammar and usage is exactly what makes it readable.

No, readability has much more to do with appropriate use of
vocabulary, sentence length and phrase construction. Correct grammar
that is unfamiliar to the audience decreases readability. Just like
referring to the "spit and image" of someone would be less readable
than the "spitting image".

Steve