Thank you, guys.


Mike Hord wrote: 

> "That is the item I was thinking of!" - Incorrect.  
> "Of", as a preposition, should never be used without an object.
> "I was think of that very item!" - Correct.  In 
> this case, "of" is used as a part of a prepositional phrase.

I'll check this out.


> Frankly, most of this stuff made almost no sense to me 
> (a native speaker) until I took German. I think the 
> take-away lesson is that English is quite flexible, and 
> most English speakers can interpret your meaning even if 
> it is quite mangled...

But this definitely makes sense to those whose native 
language is not English. A lot of folks can't always take 
English flexibly for the lack of practice and can easily 
misinterpret one's meaning when it is quite mangled. 


> ...although I have generally found your postings to be 
> extremely well written, far better than I'm ever likely 
> to manage in any foreign tongue).

The level of English usage on PICList is surprisingly high.
That's the reason I prefer English-speaking PICList to my 
native Russian-speaking EE-oriented forums, where the level
of Russian language usage is usually just frightening.
The reason, I suspect, is that all members are 
native-speakers and "this stuff makes almost no sense to them"

So, I originated this thread not as an attempt to troll a bit,
as some might think, but as an attempt to make something to
keep the standards high. Perhaps I should have chosen a 
better form for doing this, I am not sure.

				
Andrew Warren wrote:  

> The error is more obvious when the subject COULD do 
> the action, e.g., "By annoying the people on the list, 
> James will ban you."

Cypress' people are smart :-) If I'll be about to 
choose a USB chip, I'll choose Cypress' one.


Mike Singer.
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