SupraCentral, I can see that this is an issue which is close to your heart. 
One thing I've learned over the years is that I can't judge a person's intelligence by their writing. There are different kinds of intelligence (language, spatial relations, perception, etc.), and different people will possess varying degrees of each.
A perfect example of this principle would be a kid I went to high school with -- to speak with him, you would think he was mentally retarded -- because, as far as his command of language was concerned, he was. (I guess he wasn't induced to breathe soon enough at birth, and part of his brain was damaged.) He could run circles around me in math, though -- and he was actually a pretty wise person, if you could see past his speech impediment.
Another gentleman with whom I am acquainted is barely literate at all. He is a machinist and mechanic, and I've worked on cars in his garage before. He can't follow closed captioning on TV at all (handy in a garage with power tools running), and he uses automotive manuals entirely by looking at the pictures and specifications. He is infamous at his place of employment, though, because of an incident that happened when he first started with the company, back in the 80's. They had just received a new computerized laser cutting/machining ... erm, machine. (You can tell I'm not a machinist, heh.) At that time he was on night shift, and one night he programmed the machine to cut a rose for his wife out of a chunk of steel. He forgot to clear the program from memory, and in the morning some corporate types came in to demo the machine to a high-profile customer -- they were rather surprised by what it produced. He was fired for it, but quickly hired back with a pay increase when they realized how much skill it took to do that. Even in my own limited experience with him, I've been impressed by his cleverness several times.
Long stories aside, though, the salient point of my rant is that one can't judge a person's knowledge of cars by their command of the English language. Yes, the broken language encountered on these forums can be painful to read at times. My own reaction to this is often to simply not bother trying to read such posts.
I will concede, though, that I have never been in a position where I -had- to decipher such language, as you were (and, I imagine to a lesser extent, still are).
One thing I've learned over the years is that I can't judge a person's intelligence by their writing. There are different kinds of intelligence (language, spatial relations, perception, etc.), and different people will possess varying degrees of each.
A perfect example of this principle would be a kid I went to high school with -- to speak with him, you would think he was mentally retarded -- because, as far as his command of language was concerned, he was. (I guess he wasn't induced to breathe soon enough at birth, and part of his brain was damaged.) He could run circles around me in math, though -- and he was actually a pretty wise person, if you could see past his speech impediment.
Another gentleman with whom I am acquainted is barely literate at all. He is a machinist and mechanic, and I've worked on cars in his garage before. He can't follow closed captioning on TV at all (handy in a garage with power tools running), and he uses automotive manuals entirely by looking at the pictures and specifications. He is infamous at his place of employment, though, because of an incident that happened when he first started with the company, back in the 80's. They had just received a new computerized laser cutting/machining ... erm, machine. (You can tell I'm not a machinist, heh.) At that time he was on night shift, and one night he programmed the machine to cut a rose for his wife out of a chunk of steel. He forgot to clear the program from memory, and in the morning some corporate types came in to demo the machine to a high-profile customer -- they were rather surprised by what it produced. He was fired for it, but quickly hired back with a pay increase when they realized how much skill it took to do that. Even in my own limited experience with him, I've been impressed by his cleverness several times.
Long stories aside, though, the salient point of my rant is that one can't judge a person's knowledge of cars by their command of the English language. Yes, the broken language encountered on these forums can be painful to read at times. My own reaction to this is often to simply not bother trying to read such posts.
I will concede, though, that I have never been in a position where I -had- to decipher such language, as you were (and, I imagine to a lesser extent, still are).
