Is this place dead, or what?

I am nothing if not sarcastic!

I take good note of "epigrammatic".

Why, thank you 5; you've made 2 or 3 days of the following week as well

A few of them actually.

...and oh look, some have popped up in this thread too.


As to those who continue their endless rants about dale, consider how asinine you truly are, since, you know good and well by now he ain't gonna change. Ignore him if he bothers you all so much...there is after all a handy dandy ignore feature you could try using.




apart from dale, no member names have been mentioned by me, so, if you feel you've been targeted directly, then, ask yourself why you feel so guilty and humiliated

I have been thinking about this. Dale mainly seems to attract the ire of other members because he offers unorthodox advice in ESL threads, although I have seen him putting forward whacko notions in threads about relativity. The ESL people seem to think that his answers will pollute the well and possibly badly pervert the learning of the hapless questioner. I know I have chided him myself for this. But I think we overestimate the harm (if any). A sensible language learner will have at their disposal a variety of resources - a good dictionary, a thesaurus, a grammr guide or two, a teacher, etc, but importantly an enquiring and reflecting mind. They may come on here to seek clarification of some point or other, but they would be foolish indeed to depend on A2K as their sole source of guidance, and, indeed, exposure to discussion and dissent would serve to sharpen their ability to learn. As for the other type, the kind who doesn't do any thinking for themselves, but just expects us to fill in the (often very wide) gaps in their knowledge, they are going to struggle anyhow.

Good eating?

A spell checker is handy too.

You're just jealous that we've got a word for something you're not equipped to do.

Maybe it's time you took the test.

Thanks Stur, that's what I keep tellin' 'em

Be sure to use the proper seasoning. . . .

I address this to you, wmwcjr. I know you are reasonable, whether you agree with me or not.
A lot of us interested in language have watched Dale be a weird commentator on the ESL and EFL language for years now. We know we can ignore him, but that is a red herring. It's the newbie language people that matter.

Those of us who have worried about the continually new learners being put off by the goofiness plus fairly often incorrect information don't hear bells ring when they go to some other website.
Robert Gentel, the owner, who pays for all this, started out, if I have it right, teaching English as a second language in Brazil. This site has always had language as a key interest, for him and some of the rest of us.

Just in the last day or two, Jespah, project manager of this site, snapped at a poster giving wrong info on a language question, and that's another matter. I remember when that person was a bot, or so described, and the bot turned out in time to become a poster with hair driving a car. It's someone trying to up their language credentials on some website --- someone who does that by copying what another poster has said, on virtually all 'her' posts. That is now the long time routine.

http://able2know.org/reply/post-6329067

Jespah gets to correct me; I like her judgement, plus she is boss.

I know that Dale is old. So are a lot of us. I'm fine with him when he isn't sending fuzzballs to new language learners.

I've had him on ignore for some time.

I often see English learners become quite puzzled by the bad advice he continues to give. I live with someone who thinks Dale does it on purpose, to mislead learners. I'm not sure why he does it, but I do (as someone who learned English as a third language) find it really upsetting to know that he is continuing to mess with EFL/EAL learners. In some countries, sites like google are still banned, and we're one of the sites they can access easily with their questions.

I think we should be trying to help people out if we can. It's what this place was supposed to be about. There's not much usefulness to this place as it is - losing the benefit to EFL/EAL learners leaves nothing but a silly playground.

I've given up on EFL/EAL questions for the most part because what I want to say to the referenced poster would get me banned in a flash, and it becomes difficult to correct what he's doing without being really clear with the EFL/EAL learners how truly bad/unkind he is.

they don't know that , do they

some of them think they've hit a site that specializes in helping EFL/EAL learners

at this point we sort of need to start every response to them with - this isn't a place to come for help with your English questions but if you're desperate and promise not to trust the answers

I, who have complained to Dale many times over 4 years agree with your partner re the aggressive aspect.

I do get that I should have reported all this mishegas, but each instance doesn't amount to the whole, mmm, shemeggie. Not that I know yiddish, just that I like it a lot.

Golly all you fellas, take a vote or somethin'. If you wanna I'll quit altogether

After all yardwork does call

I have not been in the habit of following Dale's posts. I just chanced to come upon his contributions to this particular topic and saw what I thought was an opportunity to submit humorous posts. I was not personally aware of the problem he apparently has been causing in language threads. Late last night I noticed that he posted in such a thread after his most recent posting in this topic.

http://able2know.org/topic/359552-1#post-6329154

If this post is representative of his responses in language threads, he clearly is not helping at all. I appreciate the use of proper grammar myself, and I believe that every consideration should be given to posters whose native tongue is not English. It's a matter of respect. Directing nonsensical posts to these individuals is actually rude. So, I guess I have to agree with you, ossobucotemp.

Bill my apologies to all

Thank you Con but so many seem so troubled that I fear I must reform

I hate being in a situation like this. All I wanted to do was to have a little fun. I think I'll go away now.

Merry Christmas, y'all.