In view of some recent flames & misunderstandings, I think this might be
a good time to point out that having a keyboard does not equal having a
literary degree.  We are not all of us, English professors or editors, or
professional authors.  I feel we would be well advised to read carefully
before responding to a post that offends us.  Most of the most flammable
postings occur simply because the author did not phrase something in a way
that everyone else would readily understand.
 
The most common error of amateur authors is to understate the "main point"
because they want to say so much else about it and the "main point" gets
lost in the supporting text.  The only way for us, as readers, to catch
this literary error is to read and re-read the offensive post and try to
tie all the statements together... rather than separate one or two
statements out it and call them the "main point".
 
Debi Christy
Ferrets First Foster Home
[Posted in FML issue 3074]