Sorry not others 
, most went to excel. I Worked for a US company around the turn of the century they used Lotus, haven’t used it since. I never knew it was still around. Talk about language. 
Sorry for any confusion. Because “others” went for Excel, Lotus 123 seemed to go into decline and I therefore found myself having to adopt Excel as well.
I don’t know if Lotus, or WordPerfect are still around and if so, are they compatible with Office ?
Talking about translations… I was working in Slovakia, shortly after the divorce with Czech; we were using our Slovak business partners to translate a presentation I was giving on waste management information systems. It was going well and they were laughing at my little asides. After the meeting I was talking to my business partner and asked him how it went. He said he did not bother translating my presentation because they knew it all already - sadly he just told jokes at the appropriate moments. That put me in my place … (of course in those days all meetings were fuelled with slivovitz).
Talking of translations… I heard a story about Tony Blair delivering a short speech in French, at a Paris summit. The press, especially the French, were falling about, two minutes in. They regained their composure, the rest of the speech went well, and was duly reported in the next day’s papers. After the speech, Blair asked Alastair Campbell why the French press were laughing near the beginning. Campbell’s reply: ‘Well PM, what you meant to say was that you agree with M. Jospin on a variety of different issues. What you actually said was that you fancy him in a variety of different positions’.
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I am an avid reader and collector of the works of Charles Hamilton and have been so for some 50 years. His use of English, from beginning his scribe in the the early 1900s might be considered as quaint today, but in its day, was common amongst the average schoolboy, or girl. Today’s language is poor at best. I blame the education system!
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Many years ago, as an undergraduate studying life sciences at Liverpool University, I read “The Life of Plants” by E. J. H. Corner. The subject was, of course, of interest to me - but above that I found the writing to be wonderful. It was clear, absorbing, unpretentious and unambiguous. A joy to read. Would that all that is written were such a pleasure.
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You “blame the education system”!
Sigh.
Again.
The idea of having everything written in the same style to the same standard is both ridiculous; somewhat abhorrent and very boring indeed. A bit like those people who argue that some teams are “anti-football” because their team can’t beat a different style.
The pleasure in reading comes from many things. Uniformity is not one of them.
Who mentioned uniformity, or the same style? I think that you are tilting at straw men.
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Why the sigh? It is a strange way to start a post, and conveys a negativity about the one to which you responded.
You have your view, but clearly there are a fair few who have a different view - and My own view is that the ones who consider the decline in language skills to be deplorable are right.
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I thought that you averred that repeating your points is unacceptable?
But maybe I have misunderstood what your position is. Do you think that people should not use ‘correct’ grammar and spelling? I know that you don’t care whether you do or not - but do you object to people who do care?
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Perhaps you didnt notice the exclamation mark at the end of my sentence. It was meant, actually, as a tongue-in-cheek retort.
But to be honest, I do get weary when both listening and reading, to poor enunciation and the written word. Indeed, I am of the opinion that some folk effect to use slang and poor grammar to make themselves appeal to those who identify to that.
And, I do, surprisingly, have an O level in English though my working class background negates any credibility to those who feel, perhaps, superior to my thoughts.
And to close, I do urge my fellow site members to read one of Hamiltons works. They tend to teach, and not preach, impressionable youngsters in the day, good manners, truthfulness, honesty and, well, just being nice to people and animals.
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Many years ago when I worked as a programmer for Lloyds Bank, they wanted a form letter to be sent out to customers, with the name and address of the recipient and the name and signature of the (supposed) sender filled in. The grammar and spelling was awful, and I corrected it. I was told that they wanted it as it was so as to appeal to the yoof. Ah well.
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Precisely. For example, I can no longer stand to listen to Steve Wright on Radio Two. Having been left with no choice but to have to listen to his show at work for many years, I am quite sure his accent is more, er, ‘hip’ than every. Or, I’m getting too old, even for Radio Two.
Still, there is always Radio Caroline Flashback!
I find much of Radios 1 and 2 to be impossible to listen to - partly because of the language (but I am old so that is not a surprise, perhaps - I’m not supposed to be listening to them) but mainly because of the inane drivel and verbal diarrhea that (particularly on radio 1) seems to be so common.
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Interesting to note that the likes so far have come from other posters whose default response to any challenge to their reductive, reactionary world view is to go straight to character assassination.
My sigh conveyed nothing but a sigh. This is a forum. People express opinions. It would be very boring if we all agreed but what is equally tedious is when people criticise someone who posts an opinion but backs it up with something of substance such as the references in the article I posted.
You and others are welcome to offer a counter opinion but don’t kid yourself that you’re somehow right when you haven’t offered a single counter argument to the article I posted or, more imaginatively, come up with some factual stuff of your own. You know, like an actual counter argument which goes beyond mere assertion of “you’re wrong because I say so”. Assertion is not and never has been evidence. It is mere assertion.
You believe what you believe. Okay. That’s fine. I would never have a problem with that. However, beyond the anecdotal evidence of “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve heard” and “We must all agree this is wrong” what is the evidence base for your opinion? It’s been said before but the plural of anecdote is not evidence. Give me something of substance on the matter at hand rather than your constant tedious attempts at character analysis/assassination. What actual facts back up your opinion?
Are you allowed to hold an opinion without reference to facts? Yes, of course, arguably most people do but that doesn’t in itself make it something to be actively proud of. Indeed it’s thar\t attitude which has arguably led to the rise of right wing populism, fake news etc.
A level of sophistication which inevitably ends in the banal “It’s my opinion and you have no right to challenge it”.
One definition of prejudice is the holding of an opinion without any attempt to establish whether it is right or not.
This is a forum in which a number of posters credit themselves and each other with the ability to discuss at length and with detail but increasingly over the past few months we’ve seen threads start with titles which elsewhere might be described as click bait. The discussion such as it is never rises above endless anecdote; empty assertion and defaulting to character attacks when anyone queries that.
There is of course a massive and wholly recognised irony in my arguing that the standard of discussion needs to be better than assertion 
5 reasons why anecdotes are totally worthless | The Logic of Science
Yes indeed, presenters that like the sound of their own voices but have nothing whatsoever to say. What happened to a DJ’s job of introducing and telling the audience about the record? Oh, of course, with the playlist on R1 there is probably nothing at all to say about the record…!
However, the fact that you can find writers who profess either that the English language is not deteriorating, or that it is perfectly satisfactory for it to do so in the way it is, in no way makes that view correct.
Those of us who have expressed the view that the decline in the quality of the English language is deplorable quite simply are saying that that is what we believe, and I am unclear why you feel that we should seek out journalists or other writers or professors of English to support our views to be able to argue the point, or that your view is stronger because you have found a handful of writers who in some cases at least probably have been paid for producing a populist article.
LOL. You can’t even conceive of how ludicrous that comment is. You’re suggesting that evidence is a bad idea because it came from someone else. Read any Donald Trump recently? You have literally talked yourself into the exact arguments he presents for fake news. Bravo.
In any event one couldn’t possibly characterise that article in any of those terms of you had read it or around it.
Written by a historian who released it as an extract from a much longer piece of research and for publicity purposes for a key point rather than payment I.e. that empirically it is evidentially ludicrous to suggest language deteriorates.
At no point got into any discussion about what or wasn’t satisfactory. Simply demonstrated factually with citations.
You have no counter evidence so you resort to dismissal on paper thin and dangerous grounds. The logical outcome of your response is that we ignore all expertise or published research. Very poor indeed.