Brian,
You make a good point about effectiveness. And it seems to me that you  
pose an interesting question about dutch/Dutch. I think that some  
people find Dutch politically incorrect so for them its use might be  
more significant than the other language conventions being discussed  
here. Dutch with a small d might be preferable for them. The kinds of  
priorities teachers teachers impose will help determine what students  
view as significant and will influence how they write.
Dick Betting
Professor Emeritus
Valley City State University


On Apr 28, 2009, at 4:29 PM, O'Sullivan, Brian P wrote:

> Bruce,
>
> I agree, on a technical level, with your points about orthography in  
> the sentence under discussion. However, I want to explain why I  
> might ignore these points if I were responding to a student paper.
>
> It's not that I consider "what we [write] somehow more important  
> than how we [write] it"; it's that I consider the effectiveness of  
> how we write more important than the conventional correctness of how  
> we write. Often, I would agree, effectiveness and correctness are  
> related; incorrect grammar, usage and even orthography often impair  
> effective communication. I'm just not sure that such is the case in  
> the sentence we're talking about. While the quotation marks and  
> periods in this sentence do appear to be incorrect according to the  
> conventions you mention, I'm not sure that the writer of this  
> sentence runs any real "risk of not being understood," or even much  
> risk of being significantly less cogent or elegant than a writer who  
> follows the conventions. In particular, it seems to me that the  
> periods in "O.K." will not confuse or distract most readers. And I  
> don't think it's always a good idea to point out all the low- 
> priority problems in a paper; if there are a number of higher  
> priority problems that require discussion, it seems better to focus  
> on them.
>
> As for the risk of changing the conventions of language, I'm not  
> sure that I see how the language would be impoverished if these  
> particular orthographic conventions were to change. We shouldn't  
> resist all changes to conventions of language, should we? There are  
> some changes, like the turn away from using masculine pronouns as  
> universal, that seem positive; there are others, like the  
> diminishing use of the semicolon, that I regret. But there are many  
> changes that are neither good not bad, as far as I'm concerned.
>
> Finally, I have one specific question, out of curiosity; why do you  
> find "Dutch" clearer than "dutch" in this sentence? To me, the  
> meaning of the expression seems very distant from that of the proper  
> adjective from which it is derived--so mightn't proper adjective  
> form be irrelevant, if not distracting?
>
> Thanks for a thought-provoking post.
>
> Brian
>
>
> --- On Tue, 4/28/09, Bruce Despain <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> 	May we go back to the original question?  Perhaps the following  
> reply would take us on a different tack.
> 	
> 	"That's O.K. We would have had to go 'dutch' anyway."
> 	What's the verb tense in the reply?
> 	
> 	The time reference is present: "That's OK; we would have had to go  
> Dutch anyway."
> 	I am impressed that the conventions of regular orthography do not  
> seem to be being adhered to in the quote.  Here again being literal  
> is dangerous.  Maybe we could all adopt the conventions of e. e.  
> cummings and buck regular orthography at the risk of not being  
> understood.  An added risk is that we are in the act of changing the  
> conventions of language -- going along with the drift of the younger  
> generations, who must have things simple.  Maybe what we say is  
> somehow more important for English teachers than how we say it, or  
> in this case how we write it.  The "OK" is an acronym that does not  
> need periods: "oll korrect." The adverb "dutch" does not need quote  
> marks.  In this expression it may perhaps be better understood if  
> kept in the form of the proper adjective from which it derives.
> 	
>
> 	
>
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