The following is a response to the message from Mr. Zheng Wang.
Initially, I did not intend to post it in the ustc@... mail group
for one of the reasons I listed in the message. I'm sorry for
contributing to this endless thread which is getting pointless
as flames and even personal attack directed to unrelated target
grow. My original post was merely to comment on an article from
an anonymous person who would have deserved more respect if he/she
had signed his/her name and stood up for his/her cause.
I did NOT direct any criticism to any fellow alumni. Please
accept my apology if some of you have mistaken that for my offense.
It's the time for this thread to die out because it has gotten
more than enough messages acrossed...
----- Begin Included Message -----
To: zwang@students.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: You can make ustc the best.
Cc: qiu@ece.missouri.edu, szhang@math.udel.edu, ldz@franck.uchicago.edu
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Mr. Wang,
I take one of your points. It should be "errors" in stead of "error".
The correct statement is: The anonymous ustc alumnus made numerous errors
instead of one error. I had realized it after I sent it out. Thanks for
pointing it out. I don't agree the other one you mentioned though.
Please read: "the exact opposite", "opposite" is a noun in that sentence.
Since you don't get my points, I have to reiterate some of them:
1) When you are so proud of being something or part of a selective group,
would you rather let people know your name than be an anonym?
2) When you attempt to use public bandwidth to make a statement,
would you at least have the courtesy of making it readable by using
one of the various spelling checkers which are widely available in any
kind of systems?
3) When you are a graduate student (I can safely assume so because the
anonymous "Friend from New York" was graduated from USTC, as he/she
had claimed) in one of the universities in the Unite States, is it
excusable that your command of the basic language used in both your school
and the country you are currently residing is poorer than a 5th grader from
an average public school?
I apologize for the mistake (hate to say that all of us have committed the same) of having used the bandwidth of this mail group to express my own opinion
which some of you have viewed as offense or flame, because this is not a
subscription-only group where the recipients have no choice with regard to
the messages they receive. Therefore, I leave it to the editor to make
judgement if this message is suitable for the public. Nevertheless, I stand
up for my own opinion that the article by the "friend from New York" is
the one with the lowest quality I've ever seen in the Net regardless of the
emotional value to most of you whom I have apparently offended. I had
honestly thought the purpose of the initial post by ustc mail group editor
was to ridicule its poor quality and somebody who doesn't agree that ustc
is the best school must have made it up to poke fun at USTC graduates.
It was to my disbelief that it was quoted, widely distributed and being
fiercely guarded against criticism. I am still not convinced it's from
a real ustc graduate based on the 3 reasons I have listed above.
Just my 2 cents.
----- Begin Included Message -----
>From zwang@ux7.cso.uiuc.edu Sun Sep 17 18:19:09 1995
Origin: ssd
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 1995 18:13:28 -0500 (CDT)
From: wang zheng <zwang@students.uiuc.edu>
To: Tao Qiu <qiu@sun1.ece.missouri.edu>
Cc: Rebecca Li <li@comm.mot.com>, szhang@math.udel.edu,
ustc@rainbow.uchicago.edu, ustc85-l@ricevm1.rice.edu
Subject: Re: You can make ustc the best.
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Content-Length: 2414
I would like to make two points here:
(1) The most important difference between a refined person and a
not-so-well-educated one is, the former knows how to respect others even
in his/her eyes they made some stupid mistakes.
(2) Why can't we overlook those unimportant trivials and focus on the
original author's strong emotion about our alma mater? Even he/she
didn't make any new point, at least he/she doesn't deserve those impolite
pickings. My SUGGESTION to those guys who are so proud of their English
is, try to keep silent. Or if you just can't help posting some critiques,
please be very careful about YOUR English. Don't ever make mistakes such
as, while the plural term should have been used, we just see the single
term there ("error"); and while an adv. should have been used, we only
see an adj. there ("exact" opposite...). English is our second language, we
all make mistakes. Why can't we tolerate other people's unimportant
mistakes, particularly with English?
I guess the only merit that USTCers abundantly possess is, self-esteem,
to its extreme. I don't mean to offend anyone. If you do feel offended,
please take it easy.
On Sat, 16 Sep 1995, Tao Qiu wrote:
>
>
>
> On Fri, 15 Sep 1995, Rebecca Li wrote:
>
> > Please read the original article enclosed and tell me you do believe
> > the author is from the "best school in China". The abundance of grammatical
> > and spelling error together with total lack of coherence demonstrated in the
> > quoted article will only prove the exact opposite to which the author was to
> > claim. I am surprised to see such poor command of English language which
> > seems to be quite rare among ustc graduates unless it was meant to be a joke.
>
> I do appreciate your sense of humour!