[ExI] Captchas

[john clark]

 On Fri, 8/12/11, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
"This should appeal to Damien.   :)
<http://www.happyplace.com/9574/grammar-test-keeps-idiots-off-of-the-internet>"
"Quote:
We dream of a day when this Internet entrance exam is mandatory,
creating a grammatically sound, idiot-free online experience for the
four of us who actually pass it."
I agree that its important to know the difference between to, too and two, but in general this grammar Gestapo is full of shit. He gets all hot and bothered over the distinction between "effect" and "affect" but according to the dictionary in my Mac a "effect" is a change that is the result of an action, while "affect" means have a *effect* (yes it actually used that word) on or make a difference to. So I looked at a online dictionary and found that "affect" means to have an influence on or cause a change in, while effect means something brought about by a cause. I'll be damned if I see any reason for having two words that mean exactly the same thing, and its even more puzzling why anybody would get upset for using the wrong one.

Linguist Steven Pinker wrote a amusing editorial about pointless grammatical rules at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22pinker.html

  John K Clark 
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