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Since this is the first message I’ve posted here, I don’t want to create a major brouhaha by questioning anything that historical linguists and other list-members seem to have taken for granted. Nevertheless, I cringe very often when some Wordsmith posting attributes this or that word to some hypothetical PIE root with a sense of assurance that, in my opinion, is egregiously misplaced.
For instance, the assertion that L. lignify was derived (via lignin ) from the hypothetical PIE root *leg- , which presumably referred to collecting is, in my opinion, highly misleading, at best, and sorely mistaken, at worst, for reasons I discussed at length in an article I wrote for the journal Semiotica (Vol. 171, pp. 265-291, 2008)
Since discussing that article in detail would take up too much space and digress too far from this forum’s scope, suffice it to say that lignify clearly reveals it was derived by differentially vowelizing the same, prehistoric root that yielded Germanic (Gc.) words for legs and logs, deducibly because (1) prehistoric wordsmiths personified logs as the legs of trees, based on the deeply rooted and anciently widespread tendency to personify plants, and (2) a Roman or proto-Roman wordsmith derived lignin from the same root that yielded these Gc words to identify lignin as the material in logs— even though historical linguists hypothesized that lignin was coined to identify wood as something that “people collected.” The Gk. word legein for walking therefore clearly reveals it, too, was derived from the aforementioned root, notwithstanding an alleged linguistics law specifying that neither Gk *g nor L *g can possibly correspond to Germanic *g.
On the contrary, as a physician named Jaques Rosenman argued — correctly, in my opinion — in his two, volume work “The Onomatopoetic Origins of English” and “Primitive Speech and English,” the preceding and all, other, alleged linguistics law were framed by (1) selectively sampling the available words in a ways that superficially supported the supposed laws, (2) egregiously violating Occham’s Razor by needlessly hypothesizing a plethora of words and hypothetical Proto-Indo-European roots in an effort to make the selected words fit those laws, (3) invoking only the associations that were needed to support the laws, and (2) calling forth (a) an airy-fairy form of inductive statistics and (b) cries of "imitative," "echoic," and "onomatopoetic" as bases for explaining away as coincidences any and all words that would have prevented the laws from being framed scientifically.
The so-called PIE lexicon therefore contains a multitude of obvious counterexamples that — in my opinion, as well as Rosenman’s — have prevented linguists and specialists in other fields from recognizing the figurative associations that prehistoric wordsmiths actually used to derive words.
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Pooh-Bah
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Thats an interesting post Steve....I'll have to come back to it tomorrow though and read it again after I have had a sleep. Too much for me to take it now.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Very thought provoking as regards PIE.
WELCOME STEVE
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Carpal Tunnel
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Hi, Steve--
So, did I understand correctly that you're saying that (some) linguists...well, not exactly changed the data (words, sounds) to fit their theories, but rather reconfigured the criteria for putting certain data into certain categories?
I must say, I object a bit to Dr. Rosenman's term "airy-fairy": that comes pretty close to sounding like a personal attack.
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In your theory, what is the prehistoric root, and what are the sound changes that yielded leg, log, lignin? What other evidence can you cite to support this theory? Under what circumstances do Greek /g/ and Latin /g/ correspond to Germanic /g/?
Greek legein means "pick up, count, say, speak", doesn't it?
Last edited by goofy; 06/21/11 01:40 PM.
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Hi, Steve--
So, did I understand correctly that you're saying that (some) linguists...well, not exactly changed the data (words, sounds) to fit their theories but rather reconfigured the criteria for putting certain data into certain categories? Not exactly. But explaining what these linguists did and how they did it is not so simple because it requires de-constructing and reconstructing the so-called PIE lexicon in a way that unites more of the available evidence more logically, parsimoniously and instructively than these linguists did — since these are the criteria that scientists, logicians, and theorists outside of historical linguistics use to determine which of two or more theories should be accepted. However, I’ll try to show you how these linguists framed two of their supposed laws in a way that will show you how the rest of their supposedly inviolable laws were framed. More specifically, historical linguists have managed to maintain for over a century now essentially that (1) initial Gc. * p cannot possibly correspond to initial Gk or L. *p , and (2) Gc. *d cannot correspond to Gk or L. *d in words that were derived from the same PIE root. Consequently, these linguists have also managed to maintain for over a century now that the root [ p_vowel_ d] of Gk and L words for the foot (such as L. peda ‘footstep’, L pedalis ‘pertaining to the foot’, L. pedes ‘a walker’, Gk podion ‘foot’, and Gk pedilon ‘sandal’) could not possibly have been derived from the same PIE root that yielded the consonantally and semantically identical root of Gc words for the feet or using them (such as OE paeddan ‘to walk’, Low German pad ’soul the foot’, and Eng paddle 'to waddle or splash with the feet’). To frame the foregoing laws, then, these linguists simply decided to orphan these Gk and L words from their transparently cognate Gc relatives by attributing the former to the hypothetical PIE root ped-, which presumably referred narrowly to the foot, and calling the latter “coincidences.” Needless to say, if empirical scientists had adopted the policy of calling every non-lawful event they observed a coincidence, we’d all be walking around on a flat earth in a geocentric universe. Luckily , however, this isn't the case.
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In your theory, what is the prehistoric root, and what are the sound changes that yielded leg, log, lignin? What other evidence can you cite to support this theory? Under what circumstances do Greek /g/ and Latin /g/ correspond to Germanic /g/?
Greek legein means "pick up, count, say, speak", doesn't it? The root deducibly consisted simply of an *l followed by a vowel and a velar stop, which wordsmiths in various languages voiced or didn’t voice to nuance the root. The only sound changes that appear in these derivatives were the same, differential vowelizations/vocalizations that (1) historical linguists postulated to explain the existence of the so-called *o-grade, *i-grade, a-grade and *e-grade variants of Proto-Indo-European roots, and (2) wordsmiths in every language used later to nuance the words they derived from that root. Although Greek legein does mean to ‘pick up, count, say, or speak, to understand why it also clearly reveals it is cognate with the foregoing words for legs, logs and lignin, you have to recognize that wordsmiths have traditionally used figurative associations to form words, and prehistoric wordsmiths were deducibly far more figuratively minded than their modern counterparts. Hence, many words for speaking clearly reveal they are cognate with words for the feet or using the feet. For instance, the Gk word logos, which is transparently cognate with legein, referred to a discourse; and discourse was derived from the L. word discurrere for running around — evidently for the same reason we often refer to speaking as “running off at the mouth.” It is deducibly for the same reason that gad(e)rian, the OE ancestor of gather, is synonymous with legein, and clearly reveals it is further cognate with (1) the ON ancestor gata of our word gait for a way of walking and (2) gate for a path. As I explained above, however, historical linguistics could not cognate these words for the same reason they could not cognate Gc words for the foot with the words' L. and Gk relatives; doing so would have prevented them from formally recognizing that Gc *d can correspond to Gc *t, and, thus, that PIE *d or *t can correspond to either or both. It sounds, however, like someone has convinced you that cognating words in different languages requires proving the existence of regular consonant changes, even though the available evidence does not support that conclusion one bit — in my opinion or Rosenman’s opinion based on his 40-year study. To recognize the irregularity that existed in word formation, all one has to do is look at the vast number of irregular verbs that exist in every language. As to how much evidence I can supply to support these assertions, suffice it to say I can supply far more evidence than this forum and time limitations will permit. But before one can recognize the validity of that evidence and the arguments supporting it, he or she has to understand the difference between evidence and coincidences, as well as the difference between coincidences and counter-examples -- especially of the kind that led to the overthrow of other purportedly scientifically derived laws and theories.
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Carpal Tunnel
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such as OE paeddan ‘to walk’
I think you mean pæþþan 'to tread (a path), traverse'.
Anyway, your historical linguistics rebooted certainly is more fun once you've gotten rid of all those stodgy "laws". So, not only are foot and pedal cognate, but so is path and pod and faith and a whole bunch more. Arithmetic is so much more fun if you get rid of laws like you cannot divide by zero. Being able to divide by zero allows you to derive equations like 1 = 0. I can't wait for you to fix biology and physics. I'm sure that'll be fun, too.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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such as OE paeddan ‘to walk’
I think you mean pæþþan 'to tread (a path), traverse'. Thanks for the correction. I didn’t realize that I could use OE characters here. So, I took the liberty of using *d instead of thorn and ae instead of ash. However, substituting thorn for *d now doesn’t change the picture one iota, since pae-thorn-thorn-an had a variant pedden ‘to step often ’, and the E. Frisian is padden. Anyway, your historical linguistics rebooted certainly is more fun once you've gotten rid of all those stodgy "laws". Yes, it is. Isn’t it? After all, things are usually a lot more fun when you can make some sense out of them. So, not only are [i]foot and pedal cognate but so is path and pod They undoubtedly are! But to understand why, you have to take a Cartesian approach to the question by divesting yourself of your beliefs that (1) those “stodgy laws” are indeed inviolable because they were framed scientifically; (2) pods could not have had anything whatsoever to do with paths or feet in the minds of the person or people who formed and used the words, and (3) these people viewed the world the same way you do. Since historical linguists either didn’t know or cared to know anything about pods when they orphaned pod from its transparent Gk and L cognates, and you may not know much about pods, I’ll tell you some things about them that can shed a great deal of light on why pod clearly reveals it is cognate with IE words for the foot. A pod happens to be the seed bearing structure of a legume or other plant, and pods are therefore the podia or feet from which the pea’s pedicel emerges. So, the hypothesis that people anciently personified plants can not only explain why Eng pod is transparently cognate with Gk podium, it can also explain why (1)) legume is transparently cognate with Gc words for legs, and (2) the Gk and L ancestors pison and pisa, respectively, of the Eng. words pise and pease for the foot-like legume we call a pea clearly reveal they are i-grade variants of Gk pous and L. pes ‘foot’. If you look at a pea pod hanging from its legume (e.g. using Google Images) you can clearly see why prehistoric wordsmiths considered and called the pea plant a legume consisting of legs ending it feet. It was based on the same deeply rooted tendency to personify plants that caused people to personify logs as legs. Hence pod also came down through history as a verb for collecting or gathering pea pods, just as leg- came into Gk referring to gathering. One can even deduce how IE words for legs and feet became attached to legumes and their pods by, say, imagining a person in a group of people foraging for food. He picks a plant we now call a legume, holds it up, and cries out “Leg!, which causes everyone to laugh. So they go back and pass the joke on to their clans or tribes, which eventually causes the joke and its associations to spread to other clans and tribes. In contrast, historical linguists de-humanized language by attempting to attribute word origins to the action of the allegedly inviolable sound shift laws that the fairytale-ist Jacob Grimm hypothesized in the early 1800's. Because Grimm knew nothing about science, however, he failed to control his thought experiments by, e.g. seeing whether Gk and L p and d could also correspond to Gc p and d, as they demonstrably do. And his followers simply decided to call any evidence that would have prevented them from raising Grimm’s hypotheses to laws scientifically coincidences. The difference between evidence and coincidences is essentially that evidence can be logically and/or causally united in an instructive way, whereas coincidences can’t be, and since the consonantally identical Gk, L and Gc words under discussion here can indeed be so united, they constitute evidence, not coincidences. Arithmetic is so much more fun if you get rid of laws like you cannot divide by zero. Being able to divide by zero allows you to derive equations like 1 = 0. On the contrary, what I’m doing here is exactly the opposite. I’m using the Identity Principle (1=1), which grounds any mathematical proof, to cognate Gk, L and Gc words with consonantally and semantically identical Gc words, and I’m applying the same literal relationships that historical linguists invoked to cognate only the words that seemingly supported their laws judiciously to reveal the words they had to orphan to frame those laws. The practice is called using a control to test whether a theory can unite a limited set of phenomenon or a broader set in a more parsimonious and instructive way then a competing theory. But whether you or anyone else is willing or able to recognize which theory does so depends on his her ability to evaluate evidence and arguments logically and dispassionately -- rather than based on how long a theory has existed or how many supposed experts have accepted it. The history of science is littered with the dead bodies of experts and their theories, and – in my explicit opinion as well as Rosenman’s implicit opinion– historical IE linguistics will have to join those theories sooner or later. I can't wait for you to fix biology and physics. I'm sure thats'll be fun, too. Here we go. So, since what I’ve written evidently differs with everything you and many other people have believed for so long, I suppose you’re next attempt to refute it will contain words like “crank,” “fringe,” “fanciful,” ”“folk etymologies,”“unscientific” (Tee-hee!). Go ahead! Fire away! But it’s not going to change the evidence or arguments in the case one iota!
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So, the hypothesis that people anciently personified plants can not only explain why Eng pod is transparently cognate with Gk podium, it can also explain why (1))legume is transparently cognate with Gc words for legs, and (2) the Gk and L ancestors pison and pisa, respectively, of the Eng. words pise and pease for the foot-like legume we call a pea clearly reveal they are i-grade variants of Gk pous and L. pes ‘foot’.
But this hypothesis is not falsifiable in your theory, because your theory doesn't account for regular sound change. So you can hypothesize that any number of words are related by making up semantic connections. All you've done is presented a list of words from different languages that are similar in sound and meaning, or can be made to seem similar in meaning, and claimed that they are all related. I could do the same for any two languages you care to mention. And since in your theory there is no such thing as regular sound change, you don't have to explain any of the sound correspondences. Why not say that root is related to Greek pous and Latin pes as well? After all, you can easily see how a tree could be personified with the roots as the feet.
Last edited by goofy; 06/25/11 12:08 PM.
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Pooh-Bah
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Anyway, your historical linguistics rebooted certainly is more fun once you've gotten rid of all those stodgy "laws". Yes, it is. Isn’t it? After all, things are usually a lot more fun when you can make some sense out of them. And its fun debating the points too...or in my case reading this thread, cause I am yet to be persuaded one way or the other.
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And its fun debating the points too...or in my case reading this thread, cause I am yet to be persuaded one way or the other.
is a good place to start... Calvert Watkins' introduction to the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Here we go. So, since what I’ve written evidently differs with everything you and many other people have believed for so long, I suppose you’re next attempt to refute it will contain words like “crank,” “fringe,” “fanciful,” ”“folk etymologies,”“unscientific” (Tee-hee!). Go ahead! Fire away! But it’s not going to change the evidence or arguments in the case one iota!
I debated whether I should break my silence or not, but in the end I decided to counteract some of the notions you were tossing around. Let's call your notions a new comparative-historical linguistics. The old school, the one that is so wrong for such a long time, based their comparison of the forms of words, bolstered by semantic relations. What Bopp and Grimm and their colleagues noticed is that sound change is regular. Your anything goes theory (as goofy has suggested) just about allows for anything. Yours is actually the older working hypothesis, stretching back through Isidore of Seville to Varro.
The 19th and 20th century version of comparative-historical linguistics also allows for words like pedal having something to do with foot to appear in English. It was borrowed rather than inherited. Once consonants count for very little and vowels for less, you can relate all kinds of words together with, between, and amongst languages. After posting the other day, I realised that through your system, pet is obviously related to foot, pes, pedis, et al.: the prototypical pet is a dog, dogs refer to feet, as in "Boy, howdy are my dogs tired."
I have had this same argument with more than one person on the Web.The most-interesting "theory" was that there was some sort of primitive phonemic inventory, and that one could determine etymologies, not by relating forms with meanings, historically and comparatively, but more like legos. If it's got an r in it, it has to do with flowing water: e.g., river, creek, pore, etc. Almost all his examples came from English.
I have noticed that once folks have come up with their theories, they tend to go someplace where they can present their findings. Words or language lists, archaeology or history, etc. And then they get all twisted out of shape when folks point out what's wrong with their theory. It devolves into a shouting match; nobody is convinced one way or another, etc. I am not saying that your theory is wrong, but I do reserve the right to say it does not interest me because I do not see its use in the same way that I do with physics or arithmetic or good old-fashioned comparative-historical linguistics.
Take care on your journey. You may be the first person I have to put on my ignore list.
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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But this hypothesis is not falsifiable in your theory, because your theory doesn't account for regular sound change. This is a logical fallacy called begging the question; that is, assuming that the question — “Are the sound changes that historical linguists consider inviolable laws regular?” — has already been answered affirmatively. And It most certainly hasn’t — at least in any way that a logician, empirical scientist or philosopher of science should consider logical or scientific. To the contrary, the answer to the question is evidently “No,” even though you’re having trouble accepting that answer. With respect to the Popperian notion of falsifiability, you can certainly disprove my theory if, for instance, you can prove that the following literal formulae don’t really equal one: L p_d/foot = Gk p_d/foot = Gc p_d/foot = 1 On the other hand, I’ve just disproved the supposed laws specifying that Gc * p and * d never correspond to Gk and L * p and * d. But, according to historical linguists, this isn’t a falsification; it’s nothing but a coincidence, since the law is inviolable. This is exactly the kind of fallacious reasoning that Vonnegurt had in mind when he coined the term“Catch-22." So you can hypothesize that any number of words are related by making up semantic connections. Except that I’m not “making up semantic connections.” The assertion that people have graphically and linguistically personified plants and their parts is so intuitively obvious and incredibly well-documented that it’s an axiom, insofar as it’s a self-evident and a universally recognized truth. The etymologies I’ve presented just exemplify that truth. All you've done is presented a list of words from different languages that are similar in sound You mean, as opposed to what linguists did? Firstly, let’s get our terms straight. The issue is the inviolability of consonant changes, not sound changes, since (1) vocalization — hence sound — changes with vowelization, (2) historical linguists have accepted the existence of differential vowelization when they framed their laws and roots, and (2) the Gc words I’ve been comparing are consonantally and semantically identical to L. and Gk words, in opposition to those alleged laws. The Gc words are therefore obvious counterexamples, even though these linguists somehow managed to pawn the counterexamples off as coincidences in an effort to frame and support their purported laws. [words] can be made to seem similar in meaning, So, what are you saying now? That I made words like L. pedetemptim ‘step by step’, and pedestrian ‘walker’ seem semantically similar to Gc words for walking like pedden, padden and a multitude of other words for the feet and using them. I could do the same for any two languages you care to mention. And since in your theory there is no such thing as regular sound change, you don't have to explain any of the sound correspondences. You just keep begging the question, evidently because your teachers believed and led you and their other students to believe that neither L nor Gk *p or *d can correspond to Gc. *p or *d because of supposed laws. So these students simply accepted what their teachers told them for a number of reasons I need not go into. Why not say that root is related to Greek pous and Latin pes as well? After all, you can easily see how a tree could be personified with the roots as the feet. Now you’re starting to think the way you should have been thinking all along, since the same root [ p+V+ d that yielded Gk. L, and Gc words for feet and pods came into Sanskrit as pada ‘foot, tree root.’ So, now, since Gk, L and Skt * p and * d inviolably correspond to each other but never to Gc * p and d, historical linguists also had to orphan Skt pada from its Gc cognates to frame these supposed laws. Consequently, frame is a perfect word for what they did. BTW, I’m not denying that Gk, L. and Skt p and d can correspond to Gc f and t, respectively, since they evidently can and do. However, since Gk, L. and Skt p and d can also correspond to Gk, L. and Skt * f and * t, the supposed laws specifying that they can never correspond to Gc * f and * t are also invalid. But I’m not about to present that case here, if you can’t even accept the relatively obvious formula L p_d/foot = Gk p_d/foot = Gc p_d/foot = 1, and its intuitively obvious corollaries.
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[i]Take care on your journey. You may be the first person I have to put on my ignore list. Thanks very much. It saves me the time and trouble of having to respond to objections that are as vacuous as this one and the last one your posted.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I wonder what the ancient Greeks sitting in the Agora in
Athens would have done had they had an "Ignore" button.
Don't worry Steve, I am on Ignore and it is a delightful
experience.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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But this hypothesis is not falsifiable in your theory, because your theory doesn't account for regular sound change. This is a logical fallacy called begging the question; that is, assuming that the question — “Are the sound changes that historical linguists consider inviolable laws regular?” — has already been answered affirmatively. And It most certainly hasn’t — at least in any way that a logician, empirical scientist or philosopher of science should consider logical or scientific. To the contrary, the answer to the question is evidently “No,” even though you’re having trouble accepting that answer. I think we know that sound change is at least partly regular, because we have a mass of evidence showing regular sound correspondences. The reason we assume that sound change is invariably regular is because it lets us make predictions and falsifiable hypotheses. In other words, it's a useful assumption. If we assume that sound change isn't invariably regular, then we can't predict how the forms of words will differ across languages, and every hypothesis we make is as valid as any other. I have no interest in that sort of theory, it's not useful or interesting.
On the other hand, I’ve just disproved the supposed laws specifying that Gc *p and *d never correspond to Gk and L *p and *d.
No, you've simply asserted that some words are related, without offering an explanation of the various historical processes that led to the different forms. Why do some of the Germanic words begin with p and some with f.
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Pooh-Bah
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This is a good place to start... Calvert Watkins' introduction to the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. Thanks for that goofy....I was getting lost in this conversation.
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I think we know that sound change is at least partly regular, because we have a mass of evidence showing regular sound correspondences. The reason we assume that sound change is invariably regular is because it lets us make predictions and falsifiable hypotheses. Utter nonsense! You’re using the correct word when you call it an “hypothesis” or “assumption”— rather than the “inviolable law” linguists have been pawning it off as. But you obviously don’t know or want to know what falsifiability is because I just falsified the hypothesis that Gk, L, and Skt *p and *d can't possible correspond to Gc *p and *d. So maybe you can tell me how I can falsify that hypothesis any better ? I’d really like to hear that one. In other words, it's a useful assumption. Sure. So was the assumption that the Sun revolved around the earth in that it allowed Ptolemaic astronomers to develop a system of concentric circles that predicted some things about planetary motion. The problem was that the predictions didn’t match the observations, just as the prediction that Gk, L, and Skt *p and *d invariably correspond to Gc *f and *t don’t match the observations. In both cases the hypotheses were wrong. So Ptolemaic astronomers egregiously violated Occham’s Razor — I’m assuming you know what that is — by adding more and more hypotheses to their system in an effort to make the system fit the observations, or just ignoring the discrepancies. By the same token, linguists kept hypothesizing the existence of unattested words and PIE roots to make the evidence fit their theories, or they just ignored the discrepancies, like the ones I just showed you and hundreds of others. Then, when Copernicus theorized that the earth revolved around the sun, and Galileo proved it telescopically by observing Venus’s phases, these astronomers just ignored them, too. And the Catholic Church, whose belief system hinged on geocentrism to an extraordinary extent, maintained a geocentric position for centuries after that pudding was proven. It is for the very same reasons that historical linguistics is, at worst, a pseudo-science, and at best, a proto-science. But if the history of science repeats itself, as it surely will, it could be some time before linguists are ready to accept the fact that their allegedly precise science is nothing but a house of cards. If we assume that sound change isn't invariably regular, then we can't predict how the forms of words will differ across languages, and every hypothesis we make is as valid as any other. I have no interest in that sort of theory, it's not useful or interesting. You've simply asserted that some words are related, without offering an explanation of the various historical processes that led to the different forms. Why do some of the Germanic words begin with p and some with f. I’m sorry. But my patience is at an end!
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Carpal Tunnel
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I’m sorry. But my patience is at an end!
Does that mean you're going to go away?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Is it possible to agree to disagree?
----please, draw me a sheep----
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This is just another comment by a fly-by commenter, but I think that, in situations such as this, agreeing to disagree is considered to be a false surrender: that is, offering truce or falsely surrendering the position in order to misrepresent opponent's position as unprovable or ad nauseam while ignoring Aumann's agreement theorem. link
The Lone Haranguer
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Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 5,295 |
I tried to understand what the link offers. But when I read this:
in a certain precise sense, I stopped and thought ...uh,
does this mean a vaguely precise sense (which is nonsense) or does it mean a definite precise sense. Not certain about what certain means.
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Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724 |
while ignoring Aumann's agreement theorem. link "If they each have common knowledge of their individual posteriors, then their posteriors must be equal." [Trying to keep a straight, scientific, face e]
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,917 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,917 Likes: 2 |
Good one, Avy. Seems a bit trivial to me to be fighting over.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Joined: May 2010
Posts: 963
old hand
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old hand
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 963 |
Seriously, Avy, it's common knowledge that my posterior has no equal.
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Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,706
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 1,706 |
I’m sorry. But my patience is at an end!
Does that mean you're going to go away? I hope you didn't means this, the way it sounds, Faldage! Isn't this an open forum for discussion? All ideas have merit and I hope Steve and other posters aren't put off from expressing their findings and research.
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Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jun 2000
Posts: 724 |
Seriously, Avy, it's common knowledge that my posterior has no equal. I am glad it is not equal to mine, Trom. Equal posteriors make not good teachers.
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,917 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,917 Likes: 2 |
I’m sorry. But my patience is at an end!
Does that mean you're going to go away? I hope you didn't means this, the way it sounds, Faldage! Isn't this an open forum for discussion? All ideas have merit and I hope Steve and other posters aren't put off from expressing their findings and research. I concur with Candy.
Last edited by LukeJavan8; 06/27/11 11:03 PM.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Well--there are different ways of saying the same thing. For example, "Hey, I've done quite a bit of research, and it seems to show that there's a good possibility that some long and widely held beliefs may not be correct; what do people here think?" is very different from, "Hey, I've got this idea that goes against previously-held beliefs, and anybody who disagrees with me is just showing their ignorance." Just an example, you see.
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Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,917 Likes: 2
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2008
Posts: 9,917 Likes: 2 |
And a good example, too, but there are those whose
'opinions' are put forth as gospel and they won't allow
for disagreement, or other opinion, and consider the
discussion "closed" once they have given theirs'.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 52
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2011
Posts: 52 |
I agree, there are those that find it impossible to give an opinion, everything they say is presented as a fact and is not to be argued with...............
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