Lee Poulsen wrote, >And even though I'd much prefer good English from native English >speakers (because it makes me wonder about how well English is being >taught or not being taught to our children as they grow up in places >like the U.S. or the U.K. or Australia-and it's easier to read and >understand!), I would still rather hear from them no matter what. I >would hate it if someone felt like they ought not participate on PBS >because they are poor spellers or are self-conscious about their grammar. I agree with this completely, and I've been editing in English (and sometimes other languages) for more than 40 years, with an academic background in both conventional English language and literature, and in linguistics. I often suspect that people who have a lot of good information about plants hesitate to write about what they know because they're anxious about their language skills. No one should worry about this in the context of an e-mail forum; and if you know plenty but can't write, and would like to contribute to a print publication, they all have editors. Editors are not your high school English teacher: we share your goal of communicating and want to help you, not criticize you. Furthermore, spelling has nothing to do with intelligence in the broader sense. And as for "grammar," if the people you are communicating with can understand it (and not say "you can't say that" -- the linguist's asterisked example), it is grammatical enough. English is the de facto language of world communication at this time (which makes me feel rather guilty), and one of the reasons is that it's remarkably easy to understand the language as produced by a minimally competent speaker or writer. There are both sociolinguistic and structural reasons for this. So please write to us, in English or some other language whose writing system our computers can render, and we will be happy to hear from you. Thanks, Jane McGary