[JohnZ]

Grammar? Oh yeah....son-of-a-gun. Good catch. Spell checker is for whimps. Or is it wimps? I'm resisting making the edits......reeesssissting.....reessisssting....arr ghhh!

Anyway, Boomer, thanks for the nice compliment about my writing.

I think that I've been exchanging e-mails and making posts online since 1984. Remember when blogs, forums and their precursor iso-forms were called bulletin boards?.

My first lab/office computer was a Compaq portable the size as suitcase and that weighed like it was filled with bricks.....trendy amber CRT, Intel 8088 CPU, 128K RAM, 4.77 MHz, 40MB hard card....I think my very cool boss sprung company bucks to the tune of $3,000 for it back then. Anyway, the rule way back then with respect to online communication was that ALL typos and other errors were to be forgiven and not to be pointed-out. I believe this is still the unwritten rule.

Later, at another company, I had the misfortune of having an anal-retentive boss who had an almost pathological trait of pointing-out (in not a nice way) every typo, error of verb tense, etc. This guy was sooo anal, if you stuck a lump of coal up his butt......you'd have a diamond in a week (stolen from Ferris Bueller's Day Off). We had to be eloquent, succinct and concise, first with every official external office correspondence......and then with all e-mails....even colleague to colleague. This ridgid procedure obsessed boss even developed a "Style-Guide" which set-forth the tone, tenor, flow and orgainization of our written work products. Failure to adhere to this guide was not a good thing. Later, this guide was extended to cover PowerPoint presentations. Woe unto you if you were standing in front of a group giving a presentation....and a breach of the "Guide" was discovered. It became such that style was more important than content. I lasted about 20 years in that environment. I sometimes fantasize about rolling that style-guide into a tight little tube and sticking it in his ear....so to speak....all 15 pages...no kidding. I still sometimes break into a cold sweat when I discover a typo or other error in my written work.

Now, where I work, I lead a team of very intelligent clincal scientists. For many of them, English is a second language. That, coupled with diligence of focusing on the "content" of their writing rather than style or clarity, exacerbates confustion in an already complicated workplace. I'm even thinking of developing a style-guide. God help me...<sigh> I'm turning into my old anal-retentive boss. But, I'm reesissting....reeesissting....arrgghh!!!

Well, this has turned-out to be a meatier post than I had intended. But, I like meaty posts. Doesn't everyone? For me, making posts is a good catharsis......sort of like Metamucil for the mind. Now that's a scary thought, huh?