Drastic surgery

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