# Should OF? Would OF? Could OF? I'm screaming... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 15, 2005, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404 "2005-06-15T17:10:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404/101 "2005-06-17T12:27:04Z")
> [@Coffee Manic](#): > > I work with some brilliant engineers, and every jack one of their memos is riddled with misspellings, split infinitives, case and tense shifts, and noun-verb disagreements. Despite their improper use of English, they communicate perfectly well. There is no doubt about what they mean. That’s an interesting case you make. But I _also_ work with brilliant engineers, and their language, as “colorful” and “interesting” and full of “flavor” as it may be, frankly sucks goat asses when it comes to plainly and clearly describing spacecraft test procedures. In my field, there is often only one right way to perform a particular test. If that test is performed incorrectly, or carelessly, shit like [this](http://images.spaceref.com/news/2003/9.6.2003_01.med.jpg) happens. Case and tense errors can make that sort of phrasing _very_ unclear indeed. I reject Engineering Change Requests on a weekly basis because they are incomplete, unclear, or riddled with typos or grammar errors. My basic point is this: if the author couldn’t be bothered to check the spelling (or have someone check it for him), how the hell can I trust that he checked the engineering? Poor spelling is an indicator of poor attention to detail. I spent the better part of two full work days in Los Angeles reading my program’s top-level requirements (just the ones at the system level – no subsystem requirements) and ensuring that each one was written clearly and did not contradict the others. The requirements needed to be written clearly because they were legal obligations upon which millions of dollars of effort depend. And I was a pain in the contractors’ asses the whole time I was there, because those millions are your tax dollars. Of course, if you prefer “flavor” then I can let a few things slide – who cares if they refer to the filter as blocking a “band” or a “channel”, as long as it’s got flavor? Imprecision in language is acceptable in informal communication, but has no place in engineering. So, **Coffee Manic** , let’s get technical. Do your engineers write requirements documents? Do they write interface compatibility documents? Do they write phrases which obligate your company to do millions of dollars’ worth of work? If they’re so “brilliant”, then why can’t they figure out how to use the spell-checker? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404/102 "2005-06-17T12:39:12Z")
> [@Rhubarb](#): > > A quick example: The spec stated “There shall be no more than one controller for each major piece of equipment.” I interpreted this to mean that I couldn’t use two or more controllers on each piece of equipment. Not a problem. I could use one controller that would handle every piece of equipment on this small project. My submittal was rejected immediately. Because what this brilliant (and arrogant) engineer MEANT was “Each major piece of equipment shall have **it’s** own separate controller.” Emphasis added. Heh heh heh, Gaudere’s Law strikes again. 😉 > [@Rhubarb](#): > > So by your logic, since communication did not occur, he made a mistake. So I guess that it IS important to communicate clearly and to follow the standard rules of grammar and sentence construction. Which leads me to the conclusion that your contention that conventions are unnecesary is a load of crap. To be fair, though, the sentence you quoted, “There shall be no more than one controller for each major piece of equipment”, **is** linguistically correct. It doesn’t violate any “standard rules of grammar and sentence construction” or any other conventions of proper English. The problem is just that it doesn’t mean what the engineer actually wanted to say, which was “There shall be one and only one controller for each major piece of equipment”. The author of the sentence in this case had a semantic problem, not a grammatical or syntactic one. You are quite right that confusion is also often caused by poor grammar and syntax, not to mention spelling. Consider these classic examples: 1. “I had mentioned frequently the server crashed, but nothing was done about it.” (Does the author mean that the server crashed frequently, or that s/he frequently mentioned a particular server crash?) 2. “I notified the admin about my intents of diagnosing when the problem happened again.” (Did the author tell the admin that s/he **intended** to diagnose the problem, or that s/he had performed **intensive** diagnosing? And had the problem “happened again” before the notification, or after, or not yet?) But the example you gave, though it’s definitely an instance of poor communication, doesn’t count as poor communication due to incorrect English usage. It’s a case of something being semantically wrong without being linguistically incorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404/103 "2005-06-17T13:23:49Z")
> [@Rhubarb](#): > > **Coffee Manic** in re: Engineers and Written Communications. > > I AM an engineer, AND I have a passing familiarity with rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Part of my job is to read engineering specifications, which you likely know are the contractor’s bible. If a job doesn’t meet specs, the contractor doesn’t get paid, but may get sued. > > […] > > your contention that conventions are unnecesary is a load of crap. Preach it, brother. ---
**Author:** ![Coffee\_Manic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b77776/32.png) [@Coffee\_Manic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coffee_Manic)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404/104 "2005-06-17T14:50:05Z")
> [@Rhubarb](#): > > So by your logic, since communication did not occur, he made a mistake. So I guess that it IS important to communicate clearly and to follow the standard rules of grammar and sentence construction. Which leads me to the conclusion that your contention that conventions are unnecesary is a load of crap. As was pointed out, the original statement lacked the communication of the idea, even though it WAS written properly. So, yes, the engineer made a mistake. Had he said, “Every major piece of equipment will of had it’s own controler installed”, the statement would have been improper English (for many different reasons), but the idea would have been communicated much more clearly than in his original, perfectly proper sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Coffee\_Manic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b77776/32.png) [@Coffee\_Manic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coffee_Manic)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404/105 "2005-06-17T15:01:51Z")
Jurph, you have a very good point – technical writing for publication is a different animal from casual speech or semi-formal writing (such as memos), because they serve different functions. With human lives or millions of dollars at stake, a certain style of writing is required, which leaves absolutely no room for interpretation. In those cases, such a tight, rigid style is the only practical way to communicate the idea. It should be noted, though, that such a style has its own “flavor” or “color” – the reader knows instantly that the document is some sort of legal instrument. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2005, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404/106 "2005-06-17T16:32:26Z")
As long as I brought all this up, I’d like to take this moment to publicly plead with the publishers of Doyle Brunson’s orginal “Super System” to go back and edit the damn thing properly so I can read it. As it is, with the wacky punctuation and style (every third word or phrase bolded or italisized, random expclamation points, etc.) I get a headache about half a page in. Some of us actually absorb the punctuation… it’s the same theory as ALL CAPS BEING THE EQUIVALENT OF YELLING. I know it won’t help, I just needed to write it down somewhere publicly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-of-would-of-could-of-im-screaming/308404.md?page=5)