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My fault on the English - we haven't decided what to do just yet. Clearly if can't follow the article it's of no value, yet we don't have time to rewrite content that comes in from readers who use English as a second language.

Andy

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No apologies needed. As an American that wishes to live in a WORLD community, I recognize that many of the people we have to work with will be using English as Second Language (ESL). Those of us in America need to be considerate and tolerant of those that make a great deal of effort to learn and understand our language.

A very interesting article in BusinessWeek a few months ago presented a story how an airline passenger from Taiwan (I think) could not make the stewardess understand her question in the best English she could muster. But a Japanese and Indonesian assisted, all using ESL, no one using their native languages, to make the stewardess understand the woman was asking where the restroom was. The point of the article is that most of the world uses ESL successfully in business and technology. But Americans have the most difficult time in both understanding and speaking with ESL people, because of our use of double-meaning words (e.g. right) or slang or idioms that have no sense in the rest of the world.

Bottom line, it is pure elitism to scoff at the open exchange of ideas because the elitist cannot take the time to read carefully and to understand what is said. Those elitists do not need apologies, but need scolding. This is a public forum, not a grammar contest.