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Re: "breccia" ad infinitum

At 11:37 AM 6/10/1998 -0700, Stephen Ervin wrote:
>>servin@csufresno.EDU writes:
>><<  Everyone pronounces things differently.  My usual
>> approach with students is to tell them to pronounce it any way they
like. >>
>>
>>Is it just me, or is THIS precisely the sort of statement which makes a
>lot of
>>us
>>really disenchanted with academia & "higher learning" these days?!   
>>"However you pronounce it is OK, dear students, we surely don't want to 
>>risk damaging your delicate self-esteem by having (shudder) actual
>standards".
>>Grrrrrr....
>>
>
>Boy...I'm beginning to think that some on this list can't recognize a joke!
> I would be the first of us to step forward in defense of higher standards
>and I also think the notion of "protecting Johnny's self esteem" is just so
>much bilge-water.  One of the major problems in higher education IS a
>relaxation of standards by SOME of my colleagues, but in a real sense this
>is a reflection on all of us.  Students look at me like I am crazy when I
>tell them I will mark them wrong on spelling.  They don't expect it because
>the general public does not expect to have to spell.  I have always been
>troubled by public signs (and there are many in Fresno) that have multiple
>spellings of common words on the same sign.  In this case the problem is
>NOT how one pronounces a word, but how one SPELLS it.  Breccia is breccia
>in AMISLAN with no speech involved.  This group could go far in supporting
>standards for SPELLING of terms.  Take a look at the errors in spelling of
>meteorite (and other) names on home pages ( and commercial pages) or the
>errors on a meteorite CD most of us own.  I'm not talking about occasional
>errors in E-mail, but fairly consistent ones.  
>
>Here are a few currently out there:
>
>Tazerait vs Tazerzait
>Murcury vs Mercury
>Juacheng vs Juancheng (Heze was too easy)
>Haag vs Haig (sorry Bob)
>Nahkla vs Nakhla
>Bedeasites vs Bediasites
>Mudrabilla vs Mundrabilla
>Saratov vs Satatov (Probably a typo since the r and t keys are side by side)
>Campo Del Ciela vs Campo del Cielo
>Canon Diablo vs Canyon Diablo
>Orgueil vs Orguiel
>
>Perhaps we should really be disenchanted with ourselves (and I include
>myself in this).
>
>
>Steve E.
>
>
>

Guess I proved my own point...Bernd caught me ...it IS Ameslan not Amislan.
 I did include myself in the self inflicted disenchantment!!

Steve E.
**************************************************************************

Dr. Stephen Ervin
Department of Biology
California State University, Fresno
Fresno, Ca.  93740-0073
(209) 278-2143
servin@csufresno.edu

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