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Showing posts from November, 2014

This is what grinds my gear

So there I was on a Friday afternoon having a discussion with a co-worker about articles, subject-verb agreement and other arcane aspect of grammar (we were arguing over the help text on a report). As these things sometimes do, it bogged down to an understanding of rules of English grammar. He said one thing was right and I said the other was right. Then out of nowhere he goes "let's get a 3rd person in here to break the tie". Great, I thought thinking he was going to suggest someone with a BA in English Literature or something like that (lots of disciplines end up in IT). But no, he said "let me get someone that was born here ". And thus ended my productive time that day. What the heck do you mean get someone that was born here, I wanted to say to him. I had to study for years and take multiple exams to be proficient in this language; why would you assume someone born here is automatically better than me (I wasn't interested in his estimation of his own pro