I came across this little comment in an email debate on the Libertarian Alliance Forum, from Rob Worsnop, which seems to me to be fraught with educational implications, and to be worthy of wider circulation:

I have a simple, time-saving rule for usenet and mailing lists: Ignore all correspondents who refuse to use upper-case and vaguely correct grammar. Most of the time, someone who isn't capable of organising a simple sentence is equally incapable of organising his thoughts.

I see this principle at work many times in my professional life. People who write garbled e-mails are rarely good programmers.

I agree, especially about the neglect of capital letters.

One of the most deeply embedded memes in Western culture just now is that being verbal fluency (UPDATE: see comments!) is evidence of dishonesty, that it serves as a mask behind which evil thoughts and plans may be hidden, while mumbling and hesitating when trying to express oneself is evidence of openness, guilelessness and all-round moral excellence, and that complete silence is even better. Think of all those fluent, posh, English actors, who make a handsome living playing Hollywood villains. And think of their antagonists who let their guns and fists do the talking.

Perhaps this is what causes people deliberately to set aside whatever grasp of grammar that they possess when battling it out on the Internet. They adopt a false pose of mental confusion, in order to seem honest! Complete silence doesn't work in email ratfights, but incoherence is the next best thing if you want to be thought honest and authentic.

Worsnip's point is somewhat different. He is talking about people who can't rather than who won't express themselves grammatically. But the two ideas are pretty closely linked. Anyone who thinks that grammar is wicked is liable to think that computer programming is wicked also and not to want to do that well either.