OT: Idiotic language pedantry

[Francisco Borges]

Hello all,

Since there are so many here who seem to enjoy being pedantic about
language use, I would like to make my humble opinion about it public:

IMHO to go over such language matters in a list such as this is not only
useless, it's also pretty idiotic and counter productive.

[...]

FYI, in the case you didn't notice, this is an *international* list to
discuss the Ubuntu system. A huge portion of this list (if not the
majority) use english as a *second* language.

(I *honestly* wonder how many of those involved in that discussion
actually has ever substantially used a second language or ever got
mocked about not being able to flex a second language as a native
speaker does.)

More specifically, my problem with it is that such (pedantic)
discussions and comments can only restrain those who speak english as a
second language, and are insecure about it, to post and/or take part in
this list.

You may ask? Can't those shy about their english or who can't speak it
that well go to your own language list?

1. There may be no such a list, and the person may have a question and
   not the desire to set up such a list.
2. even if such list exists, the (international) english list is normally
   the biggest and also where you are most likely to get feedback.

Can't the person google for grammar/ambiguity/common mistakes/false
friends first?

1. getting information on any of these topics costs time;
2. it costs about 10x that time if you can't speak well the language
   you are trying to inform yourself about.

So *please* spare your language advice for the cases where it will
actually help clarifying something meaningful.

In other words: please quit this pedantry crap.

Best regards,
-- 
Francisco

(Sorry if I'm a bit on the rant side of life today. Just had a very
annoying phone call with about how they will NOT take WinXP back
(regardless of what their policy says.))