David,
Yes, I also knew engineer's who could write well. A couple were also
somewhat well-read. These additional talents helped them rise in the
engineering ranks, but these engineers were not in positions nor were
they inclined to help other engineers with their writing inadequacies.
On two different occasions I was asked to conduct writing classes to
improve the writing capabilities of important engineers. In neither
case did the subject engineers pay attention or think the classes
important.
I recall one engineer in particular, Gene Orloff. His family escaped
Russia at some point after the revolution. They fled through China and
were captured by the Japanese along with a great number of other
Russians. Gene hated the Japanese. He at one time chided me for owning
a Toyota. However he was practical and this didn't damage our
friendship very much. While he was not attentive in the class designed
to help him, he thought nothing of continuing to ask me to help him
write his various documents.
I recall his talking about the politics of the Russian Orthodox Church
(the one in Los Angeles if memory serves me). Their minaret had become
damaged and he was commissioned to design and build a new one which he
did. Gene's name was on several McDonnell Douglas patents. One was
created to solve a fuel-flow problem if I recall correctly. At another
time there were legal repercussions over a design failure that was Gene
had some responsibility for. But he was able to prove that it was an
adjacent design that caused the problem and not his. Still, he was
/persona non grata/ in engineering for a while. He used to drop by my
desk and rant about the latest developments.
Lawrence
On 5/30/2021 12:11 PM, david ritchie wrote:
On May 30, 2021, at 10:45 AM, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
David,
Your engineer is not untypical of what I recall. To "don't read much" they could add "and don't write much either." Hence the need for English majors who could write -- how else can engineering information be communicated to a company's customers? I would ordinarily have written "could" instead "can" in the previous sentence, referring to the state of Engineering in my day, but your experience suggests that not much has changed.
I take your point, but I am the son and grandson of engineers, both of whom read widely and wrote clearly. Inventive riffing was never going to be their thing, and they preferred non-fiction to fiction, but my father could quote verse he’d learned by heart and after he died clearing all the books from his house was a lot of work.
Both daughters are unusually interested in well-read engineers. When it comes to dating, apparently genes will out.
Let you and I therefore simply hurrumph like old men who see the world going to hell. That could be fun. Or we could celebrate the fact that Mimo laid an egg late this morning. You’ve heard of the “Unsinkable Molly Brown”? Mimo takes after her.
David
