As with most judging activities, it is always subjective. Pet dog contest; Cow contest; Beauty Contests; you name it, it's subjective.

Certain athletic contests are also prone to subjective judging: boxing and diving come to mind.

I am irritated when I find a CR4 guest or member using textese (lots of abbreviations/shortcuts). And they expect to be called engineers!

My English is better than most Filipinos because I happened to have American schoolmates and neighbors in my first ten years of life. I also read a lot. Curiously, I am not talkative but still manage to pronounce most words properly and use correct grammar. _{Please tell me if you find any mistakes here.}

We'll probably never really have a universal "standard" for writing. As you said, most of them are delightful in their own way.

'Cept for the textese.

regards,

Vulcan

Like Vulcan's signature - Make yourself understood.

Which means that writing must be correct for the target audience.

You list many writing style periods, but even during those periods there was writing targeted to specific audiences.

I would not use the flowery phases of Shakespeare to write software descriptions, though they might be improved if I did.

I've always subscribed to the "king's English" style, but removing some of the words that are now obsolete through usage. My family on my mother's side were from the UK, so that is the language I was brought up to speak. Although I will use many colloquialisms, I still revert back to the king's English in serious writing. It is a skill that was hard to acquire and one I don't want to lose.

as i am in the younger generation i don't think it matters what you write down as long as you are understood.

Yeah I know - we old farts talk a lot of smack about your generation's casual approach to communication.

And I'll spare us both an explanation on the connection between what you write down and being understood.

But put yourself in the shoes of a tiny startup, in which the cost of actually printing a manual for your widget is (to you) large. So is the cost of maintaining a professional quality web page instead.

I would argue that the writing that goes into the manual helps determine whether you have gone broke because the phone calls for more support have eaten all your money, or you have said something obligating your firm in some way you didn't intend and gotten your assets sued off.

Because even as individuals we are liable for the consequences of our statements.

As companies we just have deeper liability and deeper pockets.

you make a good point

I think that there isn't any "one" writing standard as such. I also think that the purpose why one writes something is very important. As somebody else has pointed out, it may equate to "dollars lost" if the standard is poor.

Generally speaking, I find that people on the internet have a very low standard of writing (laziness?). The lack of capital letters & punctuation may not reduce the "understandability" of some, providing the monolog is short but try understanding a long monolog without the appropriate capital letters & punctuation. It can be quite tedious.

Of course, there are the two great parallels...American & English. Allow me to reiterate...Simplified English & English.

Writing style is all about maintaining a "feeling", providing that the written subject is coherent. This means that grammar also needs to be coherent. I once learnt "Precis Writing"...it was quite a difficult thing to learn.

To me, "good writing" means not only to be understood by one's countrymen but also by others. It means using the minimum correct grammar & also understanding that others, who may not be good at English, will be able to understand what one has written.

I abhor "lazy English"...incorrect spelling, lack of punctuation & the lack of capitalisation.