Just want to say that what I feared was going to be an angry grammar-nazi-stand-off was actually a pleasant, friendly, and informative discussion of the possibilities of language usage in different contexts. Cheers for keeping your heads, all.

I was thinking pretty much exactly the same thing, more "grammar gentlepeople" please!

> There's virtue in that for quick memoranda, but to say that there's no place in the world for complex, abstract writing or the expression of nuance in careful word choice (as you describe) is a real shame.

Yes, I agree. Einstein was supposed to have said something to the effect that if we can't explain something in a few words, then we don't really understand it. I think he said that before creating general relativity, which can't be explained in a few words. :)

> There's some evidence that language is what makes abstract thought even possible.

Yes, or in any case some abstract notation scheme, some organizing/categorizing symbol set. Like mathematics, which is more than its notation but that (for most people) can't be sustained without the notation.

Apropos, did you know pure math notation can support jokes? Here's my favorite:

8i = ∞

> I overcame my violent aversion to starting sentences with "or" and "and", after all.

In the 1970s I noticed Texas Instruments beginning certain advertising promotional sentences with "And." I saw it as a way to add emphasis to what might otherwise have been a series of short sentences; phrases partitioned with semicolons and other similar devices. So I started using it. And never gave it up. :)

By the way, I stole the earlier "writing/typing" meme from Truman Capote, who supposedly said it about some of his contemporaries whom he regarded as hacks.

> 8i = ∞

I'd say that's more a pun than a joke.

>I overcame my violent aversion to starting sentences with "or" and "and", after all. This alone interested me in advanced English. Learning via reading all these comments and blog posts, I rarely realize that I'm learning from non-native speakers.

Interestingly non-native speakers will sometimes have a better handle on usages which are declining in English-speaking countries. I understood when to use "whom" much better after studying Wer, Wen, and Wem in German.