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Pastimes : SI Grammar and Spelling Lab
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To: E who wrote (2289)3/28/1999 2:22:00 PM
From: Chuzzlewit  Read Replies (2) of 4711
 
E, I agree with you. I'd like to add a few thoughts, and perhaps amplify your thinking. Grammar is the messenger, not the message. It lays down rules which make it easier to discern the message in the words, but it is not a substitute for the message. Unfortunately, words are clumsy mechanisms for conveying messages. Mathematics has developed much less ambiguous tools facilitating understanding.

Some years ago I was involved in the development of financial derivatives based on small equipment leases. Part of the bond offering required a fairly extensive and detailed description of the financial mathematics. The lawyers provided me with several pages of text with the avowed purpose of explicating my arithmetic. After I read the document carefully I told the lawyers that there would be no way I could reproduce my equations from their description. I suggested that the lawyers substitute the mathematics for the verbiage. They looked at me as if were very naive. "You see," they said, "this document is not for financial professionals, it is intended for other lawyers."

But mathematics does not sing. Human communication transcends the utilitarian. It is a fugue by Bach and an aria by Bizet. It is software instructions and it is poetry.

Perhaps, just perhaps, grammar adds a little poetry and song to the mundane tasks of life.

TTFN,
CTC
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