My point is that there are many, many teachers who have not had enough grammar
and punctuation in their high school courses and seldom in college. Students
are not being taught and since most of us have been students, many of us were
not taught. I have been teaching business English since 1975 and have heard
complaints from hundreds of students. Let's figure out how to solve the
problem, not how to say it doesn't exist. College comp courses are very
different from business writing courses, but they both rely on knowledge of
grammar and punctuation.

MAX MORENBERG wrote:

> Like William McCleary and David Neyhart, I suspect there's been some
> mistranslation on the student's part.  The advanced comp teacher could have
> been railing against the overuse of "of" phrases in, for instance, academic
> and business writing.  And he/she also could have pointed out that such
> writing often misuses passives and that writers should be careful about
> both-cludgy, overnominalized sentences and weak passives.  It wouldn't take
> much for a student to confuse the issues.
>
> A colleague, who was in the middle of  a lit crit article, the other day
> stopped me in the hall and said in desperation, "there should be a law
> against more than two 'of' phrases in any sentence."  Anyone who reads
> academic prose should sympathize with that statement.
>
> I'd give your student's advanced comp teacher the benefit of the doubt.
> The only way you'll find out what the professor really said is to ask
> him/her.  Max
>
> Max Morenberg
> English Department
> Miami University
> Oxford, OH 45056