Drastic surgery

I'd like to thank Mr. Graeme St. John for his recent hilarious letter regarding what he must see as "gobblygook" or "technospeak" whenever computer nerds get together.

However, he raises a good point which I would like to address and that is the editing that takes place on many letters to the "Your Letters" column of The Jakarta Post. I have it on good authority from a friend of mine who happens to be an editor that one of an editor's main responsibilities is to make written prose more cogent, not to slice, dice, and delete whole paragraphs and/or cut words that change the meaning of the writer. The editor who worked on my recent letter (the Post, Sept. 5, 1995) about my problems with WIN95 alluded to by St. John, destroyed the meaning of my thinking and perhaps contributed to the miasma that so confused St. John.

For the sake of space, the editor of my letter cut out the last four paragraphs and deleted several key words in other paragraphs rendering it confusing and unreadable. I don't know if the same thing happened to Mr. David Jardine's letter referred to by St. John, but it is certainly possible.

I would like to beseech the editorial staff at the Post not to do drastic surgery on letters, especially if it is only because you want to fit something in that day's column. It would be much better to put it in the next day's issue. If you cannot print unedited letters, I ask you not to print letters from me. People like St. John may read my letter and think that is what I wrote, when the truth is that the editors made "gobblygook" out of it and gave rise to St. John's very funny letter.

I'd also like to suggest to St. John that if it so upsets him to read computer nerd letters that he simply not read letters with my name attached.

JOHN R. FENTON

Jakarta