JTT wrote:It is precisely your lack of knowledge on language that makes you so ill equipped to decide this.
What an utterly absurd hypothesis--by this criterion, pre-literate societies were incapable of effective social interaction. It is, however typical of your seeming penchant for sweeping pronouncements on language and it's significance.
Quote:But, as I've stated many times to this old canard that won't die, I encourage people to post whatever they want. And I reserve the right, though I shouldn't need to, to reply to any and all comments.
Yes, you never miss the opportunity to swoop down upon the unsuspecting innocent with your mighty weapon, the "correct, authorized" meaning of words and linguistic structure. Your theses on language are the antithesis, in fact, of living language. And, of course, you once again demonstrate through your linguistic facism your lack of the ability to accept this thread for what it is, a social venue. It is a casual and relaxed place, and has so often, in the past, been a place of harmless entertainment. You have been doing your damnest, however, to piss all over that aspect of it.
Quote:I agree. Reading far and wide is nothing but a good thing and you can give yourself a pat on the back for that. But I'm afraid that won't help you build a rockership, Setanata. One would also think that such a philosophy would condition one to avoid things like "worship at the altar of Pinker".
Nothing of what i've offered has been self-congratulatory. I've never been much interested in building a rockership [
sic], either, and most assuredly, if you would trouble to expand your horizons of human understanding, even you could avoid the pitfall of worshiping at the altar of Pinker. I have hope for you, although with each passing day, the horizon of your liberation recedes further.
Quote:Without a doubt, there could have been some; but as I've noted, the record to date shows that your "life's experience" couldn't possibly include knowledge of how language works.
This statement is sufficiently arrogant and condescending to stand, of its own, for evidence of your hubris. No comment on the quote of Mr. Berra's son, as it is a non sequitur.
Quote:Your decided reluctance to discuss how language works, I believe, illustrates my point, Setanata.
Your continued insistence on a purist knowledge of how language works in a "pet peeves" thread illustrates my point about your misanthropic character.
Quote:I am having a difficult time squaring your last paragraph with this,
Quoting what I wrote:"Knowledge consists of more than what one reads in one or even a few books--reading from many sources is required to get a complete picture of a person, a society, a time in the panoply of human endeavor and folly."
It does not in the least surprise me that your response to my assertion: "You may be of any age for all that i know of the matter, but your lofty pronouncements have much the flavor of the young--who are so often the most intellectually rigid and intolerant."--results in the non sequitur with which you replied. Young or old, you display a rigidity of adherence to a set of contentions about the structure and siginificance of language which is very much redolent of the young. Although perhaps aprocryphal, Mr. Clemens is reputed to observed that at age sixteen he knew his father to be the most ignorant man alive, but that at age twenty-one, he was astonish to discover what the old boy had learned in five years. That is decidely the picture which i have formed of you, with your rigidity, and your lofty pronouncements on language; but most of all, with your lying in wait for those who post here, so that you may spring out and ridicule them for their harmless offerings. I assert that for whatever your age may be, you have an immature outlook and behavior. I have never billed myself as an expert on language, and have only defended a harless venue for people to meet and discuss langauge as they know it, an everyday tool of communication. With each "contribution" on your part, you move that much closer to killing this thread altogether. What a wonderful accomplishment that will have been for you.