> Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?
I assume Scott's either dumb or careless. If public communication isn't your thing, how hard is it to find someone to proofread your message when you're working at a corporation? In either case he's not the person Adobe should have handling a PR situation.
> I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar because of comments like the one above.
I'm very sympathetic to an engineer or scientist having issues like this, perhaps working in fields where people from all over the world will be working together. On the other hand, if you're working in customer care, written and verbal communication is your thing. If you're not good at it, that reflects on you and your company and the seriousness with which they take the customer care function.
Poor communication started the problems here with this customer so it is an especially touchy subject for Adobe. Hence the way people are reacting.
edit: wow, mhurron, why not interact with what people have actually written in its full and intended context instead of assuming the worst about people and knocking over a strawman?
>I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar
Are you sure about that? Scour any comments section for 10 minutes and it should be clear that not enough time is being used to perfect spelling/grammar.
>Are you having difficulty understanding Scott's message or intent?
No, but that doesn't mean we should settle for the lowest common denominator.
I think you mean "greatest common factor".
"Lowest common denominator" is in fact the ideal format for clear, accurate expression of computation.
"Lowest common denominator" is what people say when they don't understand what the original term means, and think "lowest" must be worse than "greatest".
Lowest common denominator is a phrase with different meanings in different contexts. It means the LCD in maths (used for simplifying fractional arithmetic) and it also means the "basest form of something which all members of a population are able to comprehend/use".
There is a loose commonality in the usage but the term "lowest common denominator" as used here is not the mathematical term. GCF is a mathematical analogy but doesn't work as a direct usage as it would be unclear what the "factor" is that the people are to hold in common whilst in the original phrase it's clear that the denominator (standard) to be held in common is the sum of language understood [and used correctly] by all. It is lowest because greater ones can be achieved by excluding proportions of the population that has been used to establish the standard.
Whilst I couldn't care less the real meaning I've always assumed that "I could care less" is a shorthand for something along the lines of "I could care less but that's too much effort given how little I care about it". YMMV.
All language can be misunderstood by those who wish to misunderstand it.
I think a lot of time is wasted trying to interpret comments with spelling/grammar problems. Every time I see something like 'should of' instead of 'should have', my brain trips out and I have to re-read the sentence.
For a typical blog post, the amount of effort required to get it right is minuscule in comparison to the number of eyes which will (hopefully) read it. For a public relations employee, it's just a matter of professionalism.
I'm beginning to get used to this particular error, but it's the kind of error that is often quite difficult to understand for non-native speakers (because you have to pronounce the comment, with the right accent, to be able to guess the meaning).
I think it's a matter of etiquette and professionalism. I don't get huffy about minor misspellings most of the time, but this conversation took place in a professional context. Imagine a scenario where you discover that several thousand dollars are missing from your bank account. You don't want them to reply with, "lol, sry bro... much stolen funds, wow fraud... we'll look into that... l8r"
When talking with friends I'd probably find that kind of banter (when used in moderation) to be amusing, but I expect a business person to take the time to proofread and spellcheck a message before sending it to me. I'm paying them money, they should show me a little courtesy.
Actually, yes. Everybody makes mistakes, but this one is so common that it has started to bother me. It immediately distracted me from the article and therefore his message.
I assume Scott's either dumb or careless. If public communication isn't your thing, how hard is it to find someone to proofread your message when you're working at a corporation? In either case he's not the person Adobe should have handling a PR situation.
> I think a lot of time is wasted on perfecting spelling/grammar because of comments like the one above.
I'm very sympathetic to an engineer or scientist having issues like this, perhaps working in fields where people from all over the world will be working together. On the other hand, if you're working in customer care, written and verbal communication is your thing. If you're not good at it, that reflects on you and your company and the seriousness with which they take the customer care function.
Poor communication started the problems here with this customer so it is an especially touchy subject for Adobe. Hence the way people are reacting.
edit: wow, mhurron, why not interact with what people have actually written in its full and intended context instead of assuming the worst about people and knocking over a strawman?