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You attention is directed to http://www.elsewhere.org/cgi-bin/postmodern, which will generate for you, as often as you like, a serious-sounding, but random and meaningless, critical essay in the academic style. To date it has generated over 330,000 such essays. And it still doesn't have tenure.
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Pooh-Bah
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Could one argue that the sample text at that site, Keiva, is nonsense but not meaningless?
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Dear inselpeter: I should be interested to read the meaning you can extract from the text Keiva cited.
Dear Keiva: Your analysis of the problem seems to be right on target. Good work.
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addict
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In reply to:
I once heard someone say that some of the words William Buckley liked to emit to make his interlocutor feel stupid on Firing Line were made up on the spot.
Reminds me of Blackadder: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/8889/bladder/ba3-2.txt (About 1/4 of the way down the page, Edmund Blackadder congratulates Dr Johnson on his Dictionary. The whole script is amusing (of course), but only that part is related.)
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<<I should be interested to read the meaning you can extract from the text Keiva cited.>>
I can extract no meaning from it. Mine was just a lazy poke at a speculation whether one can distinguish between meaning and sense. I confess, I do not know what "recursive grammar" means, but the grammar of those sentences seems structurally to mean, but to have no refererant and so, to have no sense.
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Dr. Bill says: Dear inselpeter: I should be interested to read the meaning you can extract from the text Keiva cited.Warning, guys: the site I cited generates a different essay each time. (I was sorely tempted not to mention this: it would be hilarious to see board members present conflicting analyses of a text, unaware that they had differing texts before them. But that, however tempting, would be unfair.  )
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Maybe I'm naturally oversensitive, or maybe someone just slipped me decaf coffee this morning, but you have my word that Hon. Max Quordlespleen has always used animalism as his moorings. Without going into all the gory details, let's just say that if Quordlespleen had even a shred of intellectual integrity, he'd admit that once you understand his snow jobs, you have a responsibility to do something about them. To know, to understand, and not to act, is an egregious sin of omission. It is the sin of silence. It is the sin of letting Quordlespleen destroy the natural beauty of our parks and forests. Quite simply, I need your help if I'm ever to champion the force of goodness against the greed of materialistic nabobs of sadism. "But I'm only one person," you might protest. "What difference can I make?" The answer is: a lot more than you think. You see, we can divide Quordlespleen's plans for the future into three categories: stentorian, avaricious, and unforgiving. The salient point here is that Quordlespleen seems to have a bitter ideological conflict with my statement that his mercenaries are more determined than most raucous, conniving Luddites. But there's the rub; my general thesis is that it strikes me as amusing that he complains about people who do nothing but complain. Well, news flash! Quordlespleen does nothing but complain. I'll talk a lot more about that later, but first let me finish my general thesis: If you were to tell him that he is a tremendous deadweight on our will and morale, he'd just pull his security blanket a little tighter around himself and refuse to come out and deal with the real world.
Though I am not a proponent of conflict, the objection may still be raised that things have never been better. At first glance, this sounds almost believable. Yet the following must be borne in mind: I am not trying to save the world -- I gave up that pursuit a long time ago. But I am trying to straighten out Quordlespleen's thinking. Quordlespleen's pranks are not pedantic treatises expressing theories or extravaganzas dealing in fables or fancies. They are substantial, sober outpourings from the very soul of Stalinism.
I appreciate feedback and other people's views on subjects. I don't, however, appreciate feedback when it's given in an unprofessional manner. Quordlespleen's functionaries suspect that "everything Quordlespleen says is completely and utterly true." First off, that's a lousy sentence. If they had written that there is no evidence to support Quordlespleen's accusations, then that quote would have had more validity. As it stands, Quordlespleen's lies come in many forms. Some of his lies are in the form of reports. Others are in the form of ultimata. Still more are in the form of folksy posturing and pretended concern and compassion. A final note: Neurotic, pouty scalawags have no business here.
Thanks, Max! I should be able to make professional use of that site - such is the world of lawyers.
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All right, you guys are going straight to hell, no stopping at go, no getting out of jail for 200$
Good grief. I finally get back to the board and here I read Jackie's post in I&A about how a person is leaving because the board is too tough and there I am telling Insel. he must be mistaken cause I think people are kindhearted then I read Max's post and, after I finish picking myself off the floor from having nearly fainted, I read Keiva's and have to dust myself off all over again.
I don't know Keiva but Maxie sure enough and thought 'this can't be the Max I know, he's a great guy, and what on earth did Keiva do to him to make him write this."
Good God I'm so glad I highlighted the post and found that web site in white text.
You guys are in so much trouble. Hell I tell you, mumble mumble mumble, giving me such a fright, mumble, mumble.
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