Re: Jiu Jitsu Strategies: Sports vs Reality

On Feb 10, 1:14 am, "Wayne Dobson" <nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Natural languages are full of idiosyncrasies. It's not correct to say that
because a particular construct produces completely different meanings,
depending on the type of noun inserted into it, that another construct,
which only allows one particular meaning to be expressed, should be used; or
that because a particular construct could lead to ambiguities in certain
contexts, it should also not be used in the contexts in which it does not
create any ambiguities. That's not how we use languages.

I'm not going to argue with you over whether or not someone's accent
is proper english or not; it isn't, and you can say the same for
something like "ebonics" which was a disaster, you can understand
people but it isn't "proper english" nd it never will be. I don't
speak with an accent although I have authentic english, polish,
filipino, spanish and chinese accents to draw on living as I have for
many years with "ethnic" families (by choice). It was a wonderful
experience but still, I have chosen to speak "properly". And it is,
largely, a choice. I've seen people lose their accents over a number
of years, so had my father, and you are supposed to be some sort of
native speaker but you just committed a mistake like a foreigner.
Again it's not that that we don't understand you. We are just suprised
you have chosen to speak this way, because it is an abberation; it is /
not/ normal. Another example is "you's people" which is common enough
in some parts of the southern united states (or wherever the hell it
comes from) to be socially acceptable (the way a rare non-
transmittable tropical disease would be) but nonetheless is very
jarring to educated people.

I understand your sentiment, however that same sentiment is, to quote,
"...what any individual feels it should mean." Namely, you. That's
precisely why the grammatical construct is important here - one
individual (you) cannot both reinterpret the rules of grammar as he
sees fit and to quote, be "commonly understood".

I haven't reinterpreted the rules of grammar. That is the official line.

It's your official line. The official textbooks disagree. I gave you
four references.

In a certain sense I share your pain because the same trick has been
pulled on me countless times, although the perpetrators have often
confused the correct and incorrect forms when chiding me - much to my
amusement as I am sure you are aware.

I don't feel pain over it.

No pain, no gain, wayne.

Quite basically, since you used an adjective, you modified a noun,
implying the noun itself was the focus; when clearly it was the verb
("read") which was to be modified. This is essentially what Peter said
- you used an adjective and you should have used an Adverb.

Peter is an ass, who's grasp of the English language is tenuous, at best.

It's true he is an Australian.

For instance, do you know what an 'adverbial function' is? Peter brought it
up, yet he doesn't seem to know what it is, either.

Then he thought, until corrected, that particular words fell into discrete
categories of speech, irrespective of context. Note these two dumbass
questions:

"What part of speech is 'read'? What part of speech is'different'?" - GDS

He fluked on the second one, as to my knowledge, that can only be used as an
adjective. But he didn't know that.

The problem is that it isn't only used as an adjective. Claiming
"adverbial function" feels more like it was looked up by you... as it
on the survace appears to be a form of adverb which does not require
the use of -ly. However, it actually refers to the prepositional
pheases of time, etc. and yes I did have to look it up because I am a
teacher and I have never encountered the need to know such a rule. I
don't believe it applies here anyways since you're not discussing a
prepositional phrase.

You'd be hard pressed to come up with an example of what you are
implying as well - since I couldn't, and I have far more sources than
you do.

I don't view it as jarring. I consider the pedantic adherence to formal
grammatical rules, in an informal setting, to be stilted and unnatural.
That's not how people converse, with good reason.

Stilted and unnatural? Hmm, maybe you are from a social circle which
habitual uses adjectives in place of adverbs. (there's those tricky
adverbs again!)

It may be a part of your accent. Yet it is still not really proper,
regardless of how many people you know who speak that way; far, far, /
far/ more do not. It would never be reproduced in an edited published
work,for instance - it would definitely be considered a mistake by any
editor who wanted to keep his job.

One very real and not pedantic problem we encounter with your posts,
Wayne, is that even though in this particular instance "we know what
you mean", there are other parts of your posts which, due to the
grammatical androgeny you are known for, cannot be taken to mean any
particular thing. This is sad, because I feel you have a lot to offer
this newsgroup and you're obviously being held back by your ability to
communicate... what a crying shame.

I am being held back by my ability to communicate? Was that deliberate, or
was it an inability?

When you say "was it an inability" you seem to be asking if you
yourself have an inability, however it can also be taken to mean that
you are questioning me if I made a comment which you disagreed with
deliberately. Part of the confusion lies with your misuse of the
pronoun "it" to refer to a subject beyond the last one you raised,
part of the confusion is your changing the tense from is to was. It's
just confusing.

I'm not going to ask you to clarify, and I'm not going to answer
because it's ambiguous. This is what I am (not was, am) talking about.
You are difficult to understand, and whether it is intentional or not,
you are still difficult to understand.

-
.

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