OT: more PC insanity

Yes but I also feel that in any customer facing job any applicant has to be able to make themselves understood and not offend people by bad accents or clumsy use of English. That is patently not the case at the moment when I speak to customer services of companies on the phone and many healthcare professionals. Its so easy to fix with some training, after all. Also the clueless way these people approach disability as if its a problem when its only a problem of their companies making in not considering accessibility in the first place. Take for instance the lateral flow covid test. Blind people cannot see the result yet it has been proved with pregnancy tests that a tactile version is easy to make and produce for no extra cost. Brian

Learning chemistry also crucially includes learning how to spell the terms used, many of which are only subtly different from each other.

Possibly?

The 'qwerty' keyboard you mean ... I thought it was more to balance the speed out (and so make it faster)?

A trainer? ;-) Do you know anyone who sees any pink?

Yeah, I've never really received that sort of thing. It's not wrong, it's just an abbreviation, like m8 (I don't think I've ever sent that either) and not really the same as 'we was' or 'anythink'.

Only by those who might also say 'fink' and 'fought'. I've heard several otherwise well-spoken people on the TV, presenters and the like repeatedly saying 'anythink'. It's nearly as annoying as hearing them say the letter H. ;-(

And it's so commonly used in conversation so comes up pretty frequently.

Cheers, T i m

On Mon, 12 Apr 2021 06:58:52 -0700 (PDT), polygonum_on_google snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote: <snip>

But how often would such a mistake remain confused when seen in context?

I think I'd be more worried if they didn't know their left from right (and another thing that does seem quite common)?

Cheers, T i m

I did a short lived A level called Physical Science (from Nuffield).

One requirement was knowing how to precis. We had weekly lessons from the Head of English; it was quite good.

He used various popular science articles from newspapers. He said he learned quite a lot!

I could do the CS lecturer. But not for that money.

Ethane, ethene, ethyne, etc.

They are also the internationally standardized spellings now. Maybe not in backwaters like Oz.

That was my real point.

Do you stand on that ?

Or start a fire with it ?

That's how I classify my book collection here, best for standing, best for burning.

The CRC book is noteworthy, in having a "table of random numbers". That usually leads to some funny looks from people, when you tell them that. But that's not why you buy a copy.

I think it was supposed to have a million compounds listed, and when I had a term project in analytical chemistry, by doing a simple melting point, I was able to narrow the list of possible compounds to around 200. No fancy instruments like NMR and Mass Spec needed, to get that far. Since the sample I was given, decomposes with time, it was very important to do the melting point right away, so it would be accurate while the material was pure. Then crack open the CRC tables and go through the melting points, to the right section. That's the only time it got used for the intended purpose.

If you want to learn chemistry, standing on that book will elevate you.

In high school, we had "collectors items". You had to buy a CRC tables. And a slide rule. (Remember, these are nerds.) There were plenty of hilarious scenes in class involving slide rules. Like, one day, the teacher is doing something on the board, that required dividing by two. We look across the room, and one of the class geniuses has his slide rule out, dividing by 2. It cracked up the class. Because most of the students in the room, were quite capable of dividing by 2 without "assistance". Then the look on his face, when he figures out he was caught dividing by 2 on a slide rule. It's just like reaching for a calculator, when you should be able to do stuff in your head. Like adding zero to a number, and needing a calculator to do it.

Paul

My experience is, you need people who have an innate skill or interest in a topic.

In a chemist, you want someone who is three steps ahead of you, when something is about to blow.

I had one guy in high school, who had that skill set. He was a little too good as a chemist. But not someone you'd hire, if there was a "background check" :-) He lost his lab privileges one day, after blowing the door off the fume hood. I have no idea what he was thinking, because as an explosives expert, he had plenty of other locales for that work. (Like any red-blooded chemist, he was standing to the side of the hood, while working on the explosive, so the door didn't hit him. A book-learned student would have got the door right in the face. He demonstrated for me, how he was standing when it went off, and reaching around the fume hood frame to do the work.)

He was also just a wee bit mentally unbalanced. The last we heard of him, he was an alcoholic in university. And fortunately, not my university :-) It's OK to be an alcoholic in university, just not an explosives expert with an alcohol problem.

One problem is, he could council others in the arts. For one individual, that individual managed to burn his own house down. For a second individual, that individual blew his two hands off (while attempting to make Tovex). (I know the story to be true, because my sister dated the guy with no hands. Just the one date.)

Book-learned individuals, a great many graduate, not many are all that "useful" in a pinch. He was the kind of person, you could say "I have a pound of salt peter and a box of crackers, what can I make ?". And he could tell you. The book-learned individual would still be Googling "crackers" when you checked back.

Paul

those two both mean the same thing

Add Kempe's Engineering, and Machinery's Handbook if you is a engineer.

My "Rubber Bible" is 52nd edition, which my father had as a review copy when he edited trade journals.

Many of us had to do a Latin unseen translation with the entrance exam....I was told that Scientists didn't have to pass it.

I doubt they would use simple words like "left" and "right" in documenting your case. There would be posterior and anterior, superior and inferior, distal and proximal, port and starboard, roll pitch yaw.

They always strive to use language you would not use.

A disputed reason is so the hammers were less likely to interfere and clash for high speed typing.

If you want a faster keyboard, then many records have been set with the Dvorak keyboard.

But you know why this is.

It's not rocket science.

A humanities professor, by design, cannot give a mark higher than C to a STEM student. The STEM students know this.

Now, in my class, was the gentleman who made the highest marks in the university, in the year we graduated. He wasn't a talkative individual. I was relating to him one day, my curriculum plan, and how I'd sworn an oath, not to take any humanities while I was in university. Because of the "C problem".

That elicited a smile. He said "that's what I did". And it paid off for him, because in addition to his degree, he was given the medal for the year. If he'd taken just one English course, he would likely have been doomed.

If the humanities professors were straight shooters, we wouldn't have to do these things.

Paul

IME, things have moved on, and grades in the 90s are not uncommon. I'm expecting somebody to break the 100 barrier some time soon . . .

And what happened to sulphites?

I recall picking someone up on a newsgroup a while back who had confused prescribe and proscribe...

Andy