Periods Meeting Quotes

JTT wrote:

This is another of those silly Strunk & White type rules. No one, here at A2K, made note of this "rule" until you pointed it out.

I pity them for their ignorance.

JTT wrote:

It's completely convincing because, as the linguist, Dwight Bolinger said, paraphrased, Usage in the broad sense is the only determiner of correctness. To think differently would have to mean that the rules somehow preceded language.

And that's just an argumentum ad verecundiam. Who says Bolinger is right?

JTT wrote:

You proved him correct in a previous post in this thread where you stated,

"Also, "toward" is preferred over "towards" in American writing".

I did no such thing. I have no idea if that's what the majority believes. I rather think it isn't. But then I don't really care.

Even someone as thick as you would realize just how thick you are.

I think that's a clumsy sentence JT.

Of course Bolinger is right, Joe. How silly of you to think that "rules" preceded language.

Well--I didn't think it reasonable to expect David to realise how thick he is.

Imagine that, Joe avoiding the central issue to focus on a tangent.

Joooooooe, language long preceded the "rules".

And so it is with a sentence like "she's been to London." It's not grammatically correct,

What ever possessed you to advance such a spurious notion?

Sorry, we need to address questions sequentially,

It has struck me Frank that another reason is that when I first came on A2K there was a clique centred in New York the members of which fancied themselves as intellectuals. They had face to face meetings and encouraged similar meetings with others further afield.

We were exposed to photographs of them from time to time. Lola's salon is how I saw it. It is now dispersed

Direct social contact tends to be much more polite than contact between strangers in the interests of preserving group unity. Certain topics are avoided.

In any case, I wonder why we cannot all just get along…why we cannot discuss issues no matter how contentious

It has struck me Frank that another reason is that when I first came on A2K there was a clique centred in New York the members of which fancied themselves as intellectuals. They had face to face meetings and encouraged similar meetings with others further afield.

We were exposed to photographs of them from time to time. Lola's salon is how I saw it. It is now dispersed

Direct social contact tends to be much more polite than contact between strangers in the interests of preserving group unity. Certain topics are avoided.

Excellent point, Spendius. You are correct…the direct social contact does seem to temper some of the negative aspects of the discussion digressions. And perhaps some of the camaraderie of the New York meets was perceived as cliquishness by some who could not be there. But I assure you it truly wasn't.

In any case, I wonder why we cannot all just get along…why we cannot discuss issues no matter how contentious without all the “you are stupid/you are even stupider” nonsense that seems to go on in so many threads.

We are all people interacting with other people--people it appears with fairly common interests.
The body is small…fewer than 30 people on a regular basis (with outsiders coming in from time to time
to ask questions about how to screw a sister or mother).

Is it truly unreasonable to ask that we treat each other with a modicum of courtesy and respect?
Can we not aspire to that minimum goal?

You and I have bumped heads dozens upon dozens of times, Spendius…but spending a few hours in an English pub sopping up some suds--trading stories and a few light moments with you would be something I would treasure. I would absolutely treasure it! Any anger…any lashing out between us is an absurdity…an insult to the supposed intelligence of our species.

For the record, I was one of the people who met frequently in New York with several others. The very last thing any of us ever thought of ourselves as...was being intellectuals. That consideration never came up in conversations at our meets…nor in any discussion or sharings of our meets that I can remember. No inkling of it...not a thought in that direction. We were people who met because of accidental propinquity (I love that word!). We had a few beers, laughed, talked with respect about others not there—often wishing sincerely that the others could join us. We would have loved it.

Just sayin’!