RJ (not THAT RJ)

Bill, I appreciate your sense of humor, but I also think you have put your... um... cucumber on the problem. If we treat caring about things like grammar and spelling as the problem (killjoy, biddy, cucumber-toting), then the lazy will win. The problem is flabby thinking and writing, not that some people criticize flabby thinking and writing. If no one points out the problem, then things will not improve. Things may not improve anyway, but the struggle against decline gives our pathetic existence on earth whatever nobility it may possess. Speaking of hopeless struggles against decline, I will end my crusade after this post, at least for the time being, and return to football discussion. Go Bills!

Every year when I see the Bills are not in the Superbowl, I find myself hoping that some massive, non-lethal catastrophe--power outage, astro-turf weevils eating the field, outbreak of projectile diarrhea in both locker rooms--will cancel the game. When that does not happen, I spend the entire day consumed in hatred and bitterness. That being said, I guess I vote for the Colts.

Ah.... the combination of Father-in-law and German is pretty heavy.... Of course, the upside there is that you are married to a German woman.

Of course it is not a test of intelligence.... It is a test of respect for your readers. And Einstein never published a word that was not clearly written and elegant. He was smart enough to make sure that he proofread his papers. The argument that somehow being a bad speller makes one closer to genius is an excuse for sloppiness, and has no basis in reality. That said, I promise that if a Nobel Prize Winner posts to TSW, he or she can spell any damn way he or she likes.

Hey, it is nice to meet a kindred spirit, but I have a question. I was chalking up my gloom to the fact that I am sitting in cold, damp Germany.... Shouldn't living in sunny LA contribute to an optimisitc outlook?

I think the problem here is that I cannot imagine how improper usage and grammar can communicate an idea better than proper usage. Certainly, it is possible to communicate well with improper usage, but I stand by my contention that clear communication is easier and more preferable with proper usage. To use a football metaphor, it is possible to complete a lot of passes throwing off the wrong foot, with bad mechanics and the like, but one is more likely to have success more often if one pays attention to footwork, mechanics, crisp patterns, etc. The notion that correct usage only belongs in "Back to Basics English class" is deeply problematic. I would not want to see everyone turn into grammatical versions of Michael Vick. As the Germans say over here, "nichts für ungut,"—I respect your right to an opinion that I do not happen to share.

Doomed.... doomed... doomed. Our entire fat, lazy, stupid society. And we try to act as though it doesn't matter.

Nice....

Exactly.

It might be just because I am no fan of Jack Del Rio, but for some reason I find his "I didn't order the squib, but take responsibility for it, even though I am too smart to do it, and it was really the decision of my assistants, who are not as smart as me, blah blah blah" answer to be rather tool-ish. Come on Jack, just admit you made a mistake and move on.... A more self-confident coach would do that rather than try to have it both ways.

Wow, now THERE is a person who understands!

I can go for that; context does matter, though I am still enough of a teacher to wish that people's default settings tended toward correct spelling. That's my problem, though, and I know how to deal with it.... Speaking of long-winded, chaotically spelled and generally overbearing treatises, where is Barry Pyrite Fake-Fat these days? I know he could not have been banned; has he abandoned us?

They did have an anemic passing attack with rookie Joe Ferguson, which cost them some games mid-season when they fell to 5-5, though they ended the season on a 4-game winning streak. The point is not that the team was awesome, but rather that the writer probably has no idea how good the team actually was, and was talking out of his @$$.

No, that is where I do not follow you. How does it help communication if one uses the wrong words, or misspells them? Unless you are consciously playing it for laughs, it makes no sense to ignore the guidelines for clear writing. Unless you just don't care, which in turn is something that the objects of your communication will always notice.

Well, if he didn't care if someone valued them, he would write them in dog-eared memo books kept in an old milk crate, or type them, single-spaced, on both sides of onion-skin paper with no margins, smudged with inky thumbprints, from which he would read aloud excerpts to himself, and perhaps to his collection of cardboard cutouts of the friends he never had.... Which is what people used to do with their bizarre fixations before there was an Internet.

It's got nothing to do with being smart one way or the other. It is a matter of respect for oneself and others.... Ah forget it, I made my effort in the other thread....

Is it, really? As society crumbles around us.... Fine.

Of course he did, but he did not think it worth his while to re-read his writing, or to think about what he was saying. And we are supposed to place any value whatsoever in his draft predictions? Ye Gods!

Hear, hear! Even if Vick is a coach-killer (which I believe he is, as coaches really have no idea how to build a team around him, but can't ignore his skills... it is an interesting, even tragic puzzle), some people could do with a little less silly stadium/internet bravado.

Brad Smith is, I believe, the patron saint of idiot written-in-mom's-basement NFL mock drafts and the unfortunate souls who read them.

I know this is all in fun, but I do not have much sympathy with the "I'm a bad speller and you old biddies should lighten up" argument. Doesn't innattention to spelling suggest a lack of respect for the people who have to read one's work? Or lack of respect for one's own thoughts? I mean, if you cannot be bothered to re-read what you have written, why should anyone waste their time reading it? We all make mistakes, and there is no shame in that, but the goal should always be correct spelling and usage, shouldn't it? *muttering to self* Doomed doomed doomed..... Go Bills!

That is because most sports writers these days have no more historical sense than your average American, which means they can rarely think back beyond the beginning of the last TV season. Sports journalism is especially bad these days because many outlets actually forbid on-air or print staff to discuss "dead athletes" lest they lose the attention of the hot pockets crowd (you know, the kind of people who would not know who Norm Van Brocklin was, for those of you who remember that recent TSW thread) while at the same time rushing to anoint every decent performance as "historic." Combine that with the encouragement to make snarky one-liners like "feeblest roster in football" in order to sound tough and cool, and you can see why our entire civilization is doomed doomed doomed.

Alas, the format they use for the streaming does not appear work with Macs. At least I could not get it to work.

Well, Joe, the bar is not really that high.... I understand the complaints about the conservative game plan, and have my own problems with it, going back to when Chuck Knox did the same thing. But we need to remember how many people were on DJ and Co for taking too many risks in the early weeks of the season. These things balance themselves out, and rather than think of the theoretical points left on the board (which ignores too many other variables) I think the decisions this past weekend worked out fine.

Joe, you are one of the most sensible people on this site.... honest!... but I have to disagree with you here. The chances of pinning them deep with a Pro Bowl punter are much better than the chances of making that FG on that day, and the risk of putting them at the 20 (worst case scenario with a punt) instead of their 45, which is where they would have been on a FG miss, is much too large to risk. Granted, when I play Madden I never punt at all, but that is one reason why I do not coach in the NFL.