[MysticCat]

Originally posted by Erik P Conard
my. my. aren't we testy?
If you ever get out and get a job, or if you ever get out to make
a living...other than a short-sleeved bureaucrat working for the
government, perhaps it may dawn on you the importance of the
usage of good language.
About condesension...if you like long enough you, too, will become a judge.

Sheesh Erik, give it a rest already.

I'm really not testy at all -- just a bit bemused and weary of your pointless pontification.

Since it seems to matter to you, perhaps I should put your mind at ease and let you know that I "got out" quite a few years ago and have been making quite a good living that requires me to write on a daily basis. (And I never wear short sleeves.) I'm keenly aware of the importance of "usage of good language." I'm also keenly aware of the difference between those times when use of slang and colloquialisms may be appropriate and acceptable and those times when such usage is not. Any insistence that one's strict adherence to the rules of "correct" English should be the same on the basketball court as in a brief to the United States Supreme Court is, to paraphrase Churchill, something up with which we should not put.

By the way, I assume that in your last sentence you meant to say "condescension" instead of "condesension" and "live" instead of "like." And does that "it" in "perhaps it may dawn on you the importance of the usage of good language" have a clear antecedent? I think "perhaps the importance of the usage of good language may dawn on you" would be a little clearer and more correct. Don't you? Usage of good language, you know.

You make my point so much better than I ever could.