RE: RE. Text is bad?

[Hank Wong <hankwong -at- Remedy -dot- COM>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hart, Geoff [mailto:Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA]
> Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 7:51 AM
> To: TECHWR-L
> Cc: 'taltom -at- simplywritten -dot- com'
> Subject: RE. Text is bad?

> Not in the least. English is far more precise and flexible 
> than Chinese. I
> make no pretense of speaking for the Chinese, nor of being 
> expert in the
> language, but there's no question that the Chinese system of 
> writing is
> cumbersome and inefficient even for native Chinese. 

There's no argument that Chinese writing is much more difficult to learn
than English.
But I think anybody who is actually familiar with both Chinese and English
will disagree
that English is more precise and flexible. Yes, the characters are harder to
write, but

they often express a lot more than an English word can. For example, in
Chinese we have what is
called "chen yu," which are sets of characters (usually, but not always 4),
that
express very complicated ideas. Ideas that in English could take 10, or 15
words, or more.
That's just one example. 

-Hank



__ 
Hank Wong                                   http://www.remedy.com/
Senior Technical Writer, Web Products	    mailto:hankwong -at- remedy -dot- com
Remedy Corporation
"I find your lack of feedback disturbing." -Darth Vader as a tech writer