[PLUG-TALK] Re: More Grammar fun.

GLL guy1656 at ados.com
Sun Oct 31 03:37:20 UTC 2004


: g> machinery in our very language. I simply refuse to participate, because
: in g> doing so one must speak and write like an ignorant rube.
:
: Ahhh, but describing the overwhelming majority of your fellow people
: "ignorant rubes" is a mere expression of self-hatred, now, isn't it?

Not necessarily. If the distintions between 'lay' vs 'lie' and 'blond' vs 
'blonde' were once taught and understood generally, but are no longer handled 
distinctly  by a majority of today's speakers because these may not be 
propery taught, then what I was saying is that people who learned that that 
was important and remember it, can celebrate the age (this can also be called 
'dating yourself') bu continuing to know better - for themsleves. By the way, 
ignorant doesn't always mean stupid or defective - currently you and many 
others are ignorant of the number of cans of beer I have in the fridge.

: The acme g> of environmentalism as self-hatred comes in the form of
: eco-terrorism, which g> is technically hate-crime against all humanity
: itself.
:
: Of course.  To buck the instinct "to engineer" is to object to a core
: aspect of human nature.

Close, but I see it this way: (Just my N2BHO) Humans are partly infused with 
some aspect or contact with a divine nature, and that interface is what makes 
us human and different from other life forms on our planet. Yes, this ball of 
dirt and rock belongs to us, divided as we see fit and not necessarily 
equally so. But this ball of dirt is not a spiritual entity in itself, and we 
do not 'belong to' it. Supernature, if it exists, is 'super' (latin meaning) 
above, outside of, sovereign over Nature. So when humans act as equal, or 
friend, or lover, or participant in Nature, we are failing to fully 
participate in the Divine. When we learn about nature and adjust it correctly 
to maximize its benefits to humanity, in other words, when we relate to 
Nature as its steward and master, THEN we are participating in the divine. 
This means refining plant oils into drugs that cure disease, mining specie to 
make into currency and grow the economy, and making rail bridges, and mighty 
ships of iron, and copper wires and glass fibers so that materials and ideas 
can be exchanged globally. All that is exiting and wonderful, and you are 
right that this emotion is at the heart of what it means to be an engineer, 
if not the passion of life itself.

: Environmentalism is no more self-hatred than
: any other behavior some subculture may choose to engage in. 

I was talking about repressing others by means of laws based in animistic 
philosophy. If one person wants to only eat raw plants, and does not impose 
those notions upon others, fine. The conflict comes when people try to tell 
me I can't burn coal on my own property without some stupid permit. 
Generally, it seems to me that when you piss of the enviro-weenies and the 
Measure 33 potheads, you're doing the right thing.

: If your reasoning for environmentalism (or most forms thereof) being
: self-hatred is valid, then we can use that same reasoning to show that
: body piercing, tatoos, makeup, exercise, pharmaceuticals, organic
: farming, farming in general, heavy metal music, computers, etc. are
: all forms of self-hatred.  

Some of what you list does seem like self-mutilation to me. Exercise can be a 
discipline for long-term benefit, or it can be endured as a slice of 
Purgatory.  Makeup is a kind of deceptio or lie about what you really look 
like, unless it is to cover up something you feel is unsightly and disturbs 
others, and then it could be a kind of modesty. Farming in general is 
dominion over the earth and that is grand. 'Organic' anything can often be 
shown as a superfluous label by comparing what could be meant if the term 
'inorganic' were used. Growing vegetables is already an organic process, 
compared to growing crystals. What is often meant by 'organic' would be 
better called 'voluntarily primitive and more expensive because of higher 
yield losses.' Just like 'Look for the union label' means 'higher 
productivity, lower labor costs, and more material for your money is to be 
found at our competitors.' When I buy pool chlorine, I apply a little organic 
chemistry to compare the power/price between calcium hypochlorite versus 
trichloro-s-trazinone. Guess which one is the 'green' product? Easy: the one 
which is less effecive (fewer Cl- ions added per dose) with the higher price.
Same goes for insecticides.

: g> You are wrong about plurals in A, B, and C because 'a set' is a single
: entity g> and takes a SiNGULAR verb.
:
: No, I'm not wrong.  "one" refers to a single element of the set of all
: possible actors, including humans.  It does NOT refer to the set of
: all possible actors.  It refers to a single element in that set.  And
: according to the rules of English it does require a single verb.  But,
: that's not because it refers to the set.  It's because it refers to a
: single element of that set.

So if 'one' refers to a single element, it must take a singular in the 
predicate. 


: "One" does NOT refer to a particular subject.
: It refers to ANY single member of the set of all subjects.  If I had
: meant, say, Tammy, I would have said "Tammy".  As in, "When Tammy says X,
: she means Y".  And if I had meant "When individual Z says X, he means
: Y", then I would have said that.  But, I didn't say that.
:
: Now, examine the difference:  "When one says X, he means Y"  versus
: "When one says X, they mean Y".  The latter preserves the "any element
: in a set of elements" sense.  The former destroys the sense of the
: subject by putting extra weight on the particularity of the predicate.
: The latter preserves the reader's intuition that the subject requires
: a non-particular inductively defined set.  The former is dissonant.

To me the latter sounds dissonant because the number ('one' versus 'they')
doesn't agree, and it's as jarring as 'we was' and 'he don't ' (failure to 
properly conjugate verbs.)

Your example of  "When one says X, he means Y" is perfectly suitable as the 
general case, and sounds just fine. French and German also use the male when 
to elements of the set of possible persons is of mixed genders. They only use 
the female when the entire set of humans being indicated is female or at 
least ovewhelmingly female. ("Every seamstress in this club brings her own 
thimble to class.") So English is in good company.

: completely reasonable to refer to a collection of non-sexual elements
: as "them" or "those".

You seem to keep confusing the collection (plural) with a single element of 
the collection (singular.)

: a teleological _purpose_ to an historical sequence of events....
: much like the way a Deist might argue for a clockwork universe.

LOVE the 'n' in 'an histrorical sequence!' VERY NICE! Now help me n Deism - 
that's the notion that of God could theoretically build a Universe which 
would run automatically and bring forth all that He (!) would will; then 
therfore that situation is superior (and more fitting of a Perfect Being) 
than any other sort of Univers in whose god would have to intervene at one or 
more points down the timeline (miracles, etc) for that lesser universe to 
evince that lesse god's will, and therfore by a-priori circular logic, if 
this if the best of all possible worlds then it was created by a God who 
kickstarted things once and is now on permanent vacation and couldn't care 
one whit about any of us or the rest of history, becuas it's all going to 
plan. (No outgoing QC + inifnitely rigid change controls?) Do I have that 
right?

: While I accept the possibility that private languages might be
: purposefully developed in cliques, I tend to believe those cliques
: will be quite small.  A slice of the population as large as "the
: proletariat" could never muster the discipline ..

Pidgins and patois, which can be distinct from Received Standard (of any 
language) are most often simplifications of complex rules, so no coordinated 
discipline is required. The discipline occurrs in the finishing schools or 
other institutions usually limited to the elite, such as officers' ranks and 
sporst clubs for activities which are prohibitively expensice - the polo or 
yacht club, for example. They become speakers of the Received Standard, by 
being bright there as children and so they learn to manipulate the complex 
illogical rules and exceptions naturally, and they cannot sound natural when 
they try to fit in with the proletariat speakers, by affecting the common 
speech. Thus they stand out as silly marks.

: But, this seems completely reasonable.  It's a constructivist
: explanation for an accretion.  So, it doesn't set off the bullshit
: meter quite so badly.

As I said, I was proposing a possible explanantion for comment, not declaring 
it as an authoritative statement. Your claim that 'One' can be anything more 
than singular though is what initial pegged -my- PC-BS detector.

- GLL


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