>
> >When did all these inane grammar rules come about,  who made them up and
> why?


WE OURSELVES make them up, in order to be able to clearly communicate.

Without a common language understandable to all, humans break into tiny
tribes, each isolated by their unique language.  I spent some time recently
with an old college chum  in entomology who now teaches in Papua New
Guinea.  I asked him which language he communicates in.  He told me that
there are over 850 languages spoken in that country.  In order to
communicate between tribes, they use one or more "trade languages," with Tok
Pisin, an English-based creole, being the most common lingua franca.

I recently spent some time in communication with a Spanish-speaking bee
researcher, whose directions for the preparation of an anti-varroa
treatment were misunderstood by myself and other English speakers due to a
misleading choice of words in translation.

This sort of problem is not only with translation.  Native speakers of
English can often improve their communication skills by learning more about
English grammar and vocabulary.  I thank those academic reviewers to whom I
often send my articles prior to publication for helping me to correct my
errors in grammar.

The posts to Bee-L are generally written in English as a "common language."
 Otherwise, many of us would be stuck trying to decipher computer
translations.

Actually, I should divide posts into two groups--those composed on a
keyboard, and those composed on a cell phone.  I find that due to the lack
of adherence to grammar rules by those who text, that it is often
frustratingly difficult to try to figure out what in the heck they are
trying to say.  I notice that those who post from cell phones often need to
continue the thread in order to explain the misunderstandings created by
the poor sentence structure in their original posts.

-- 
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com

             ***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software.  For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html