They can be like hitler. They cannot be literally hitler. I know it’s pedantic, but there it is.
You are literally blowing this out of proportion.
You know who else literally blew things out of proportion?
Oppenheimer?
…
Well, there’s this:
But none of them even have Hitler’s name.
Alternatively, Paul Tibbets
I was never able to put it into words by he was (mildly) annoying to me. This comes close.
Also, I’m mildly ashamed that Hitler’s sister and I share a first name.
I’ve read many of his posts, and I think he never used a subclause.
Hey, he is/was an IT Manager I think he said, Many programmers and engineers were notorious for bad writing skills.
Take a look at my earliest postings on the board for a good example of how crappy we are as a group. I guess he just never put in any effort to improve at all. I’m far from an excellent writer, but my early postings are embarrassing.
There is nothing to that story. We sent Steve Gutenberg down there to check it out and heard nothing back from him.
I also remember that he wrote and asked a lot of things about IT subjects that were inane. And FWIW, I’m an ee and have worked my whole life in IT, and I can form coherent sentences, even often had to write in my job (documentation, manuals and such), so that’s no excuse.
It really was a legit problem though, they made Writing for Composition a requirement for Engineering students in the 90s in much of the US. Of course there were plenty of exceptions and as I recall, you weren’t a US student.
I have worked in IT for more than a couple of decades, I’ve worked alongside many other IT folks, and never have I seen anyone who can’t communicate well. Now granted, I work in an area where you’re supporting people as well as technology, so that might be different from someone who works solely on equipment and that’s it.
Though presumably at some point you’re going to need to provide legible reports or other communications to a coworker or employer at some point, and the total inability to do so would seem like a disqualification.
I have worked in jobs where you could get by if you were just flat-out illiterate but those weren’t in IT. I suppose this could be a Chronicles of George situation. (George wasn’t an idiot, just lazy and/or frequently partying too much the nights before he worked.)
I never understood the notion that engineers can’t write, and I’ve never heard about that trope here in Germany. I mean, what’s regular school for, if not for learning to write as one of the basics? So when you choose a college or university course of study, everybody should already know how to write.
Welcome to the US public school systems of the 70s & 80s I guess. Us math wonks got a bad enough reputation for our writing skills, that they made an effort to correct it in college. I can only speak with authority for the Engineering programs and not IT/programming.
But so many of us programmers started as Engineering students and when the cold war ended, leapt over to computers for jobs.
When I first worked in IT (called DP, then), our training division had me develop and teach a business writing course for other programmers. I think it was only because I’d been an English Lit major. But I found it a fun break from my other work. I enjoy teaching if it’s not a 9-to-5 gig.
FWIW again, I had never noticed that you are a bad writer (which you aren’t) before you made that self-assessment in another thread a few days ago. There are also a bunch of other IT folks/engineers who write damn well here at this board, so I think you (and everybody else) are too harsh on us tech folks when it comes to writing skills.
OK, but what I’m taking exception to is the word, “literally.” No one is, “literally,” killing me with the misuse of that word but they are figuratively killing me with it. These folks are family of adolph hitler, but they are not literally hitler and neither is anyone else including trump, though he aspires to be like hitler, he uses hitler’s tactics and language. He admires what hitler did and will do the same things hilter did if given half a chance. I’m being pedantic, but seriously it irritates me, which is why I’m letting this particular pet peeve fly in the pit.
lit·er·al·ly (lĭt’ər-ə-lē)
adv.
- In a literal manner; word for word: translated the Greek passage literally.
- In a literal or strict sense: Don’t take my remarks literally.
- Actually; in effect; practically. Used as an intensive to emphasize a figurative statement in an exaggerated way: “There are people in the world who literally do not know how to boil water” (Craig Claiborne). I was so angry that my heart literally exploded with rage.
American Heritage Dictionary. Deal with it, grandma.
~Max