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Ginormousaurus
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
Location: 700 Ft. Pulpit
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 Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: Re: Please Comment on this quote |
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| MA_TESOL wrote: |
| [Security] does not exist in nature, |
Not true.
Several groups of ants have evolved the habit of "farming" aphids. Aphids have a high throughput of food, taking only a small amount of nutriment from each morsel. The residue that emerges out of their rear end is eaten by the ants. Some of these ants have gone so far as to corral the aphids and provide them with protection in exchange for being able able to "milk" them.
Food for thought from The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. |
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Kikomom
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: them thar hills--Penna, USA--Zippy is my kid, the teacher in ROK. You can call me Kiko
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:41 am Post subject: |
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| Nowhere Man wrote: |
What about absolute uncertainty  |
Really. I'm having a hard time believing this quote is from Helen. Before Anne Sullivan came along, that's pretty much where she lived.
Helen and her teacher created her own sense of security that enabled her to see the light {bad pun}.
I'm sorry, security is much more than superstition. It's the learning process of ants providing for their continuity, of babies learning their balance, of blind/death people knowing there's an outside world and how to deal with it on their own terms. But it's a cooperative process born of nature.
Welcome to the Agora. 
"Forewarned is Forearmed" |
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Hanson
Joined: 20 Oct 2004
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
Helen Keller
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I don't like this quote/quaotation at all, especially the "avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright expoure" part.
Anybody heard of the "Grizzly Man"? He and his girlfriend (who was filming him for a documentary) went and lived with grizzly bears in the wild, thinking he/they were safe. Guess what? The grizzlies attacked them and they died.
There are certainly degrees of safety and you can absolutely reduce your risks. Life should be an adventure, but a relatively safe adventure... Crossing a highway on foot, for example, might get your blood flowing, but it's most definitely safer not to try, as unadventurous as that might sound... 
I wonder how safe Hellen would have felt if someone had gone to her house secretly and moved all her furniture around. |
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daskalos
Joined: 19 May 2006
Location: The Road to Ithaca
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 11:44 pm Post subject: |
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This whole issue depends upon degrees of literalism and figuratism. The whole point of civilztion, of coming down from the trees in the first place was to miitage the danger of life. Nature is dangerous. Coming down from the trees made nature less dangerous, but nothing, nothing at all, makes nature an utterly benign force.
I think Helen's point is that venturing out of that cave was risky, and still is risky, but that calculated risk is the only thing that makes life interesting, and she "saw" too much of people staying safe within their walls, and thought that perhaps her well-documented experience of reaching beyond her walls could serve as an example for people who were afraid.
We don't need to interpret this quotation as her wholesale endorsement of the need to return to the trees in order to really be alive. |
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warren pease
Joined: 12 May 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 4:17 am Post subject: |
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| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| It's a quotation, not a "quote". |
What's the difference? Honestly, I don't know. |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:16 am Post subject: |
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| warren pease wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| It's a quotation, not a "quote". |
What's the difference? Honestly, I don't know. |
Maybe 'quote' is a verb, 'quotation' is a noun? |
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warren pease
Joined: 12 May 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:18 am Post subject: |
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| tfunk wrote: |
| warren pease wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| It's a quotation, not a "quote". |
What's the difference? Honestly, I don't know. |
Maybe 'quote' is a verb, 'quotation' is a noun? |
If so, Dave's ESL cafe is misusing the word. Above what i am writing now i see the word "quote" in brackets on either side of what I am quoting. Unless, it asking me to quote something before and after the quotations, of course. Someone should tell Dave. |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:30 am Post subject: |
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| warren pease wrote: |
| tfunk wrote: |
| warren pease wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| It's a quotation, not a "quote". |
What's the difference? Honestly, I don't know. |
Maybe 'quote' is a verb, 'quotation' is a noun? |
If so, Dave's ESL cafe is misusing the word. Above what i am writing now i see the word "quote" in brackets on either side of what I am quoting. Unless, it asking me to quote something before and after the quotations, of course. Someone should tell Dave. |
It's a case of usability Vs grammatical accuracy. |
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warren pease
Joined: 12 May 2008
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 6:56 am Post subject: |
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| tfunk wrote: |
| warren pease wrote: |
| tfunk wrote: |
| warren pease wrote: |
| Underwaterbob wrote: |
| It's a quotation, not a "quote". |
What's the difference? Honestly, I don't know. |
Maybe 'quote' is a verb, 'quotation' is a noun? |
If so, Dave's ESL cafe is misusing the word. Above what i am writing now i see the word "quote" in brackets on either side of what I am quoting. Unless, it asking me to quote something before and after the quotations, of course. Someone should tell Dave. |
It's a case of usability Vs grammatical accuracy. |
well, if everyone's goal is to keep me feeling stupid, nice work. "usability," em, c'mon, really? |
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tfunk
Joined: 12 Aug 2006
Location: Dublin, Ireland
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| Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 7:08 am Post subject: |
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Yes, honestly. Usability in itself is a science within the field of computer interface design. The makers of PhpBB, the forum software used here, obviously kept it in mind. For many, usability is synonymous with simplicity, hence Google's success.
I'm not saying I'm right about the noun/verb thing, it's just a guess. |
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warren pease
Joined: 12 May 2008
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:49 am Post subject: |
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Ok, this is from dictionary.com
quot'er n.
Usage Note: People have been using the noun quote as a truncation of quotation for over 100 years, and its use in less formal contexts is widespread today. Language critics have objected to this usage, however, as unduly journalistic or breezy. As such, it is best avoided in more formal situations. The Usage Panel, at least, shows more tolerance for the word as the informality of the situation increases. Thus, only 38 percent of Panelists accept the example He began the chapter with a quote from the Bible, but the percentage rises to 53 when the source of the quotation is less serious: He lightened up his talk by throwing in quotes from Marx Brothers movies.
So, tfunk, it seems that you were correct. However, making the point to tell someone that they misused the word, especially on a public forum, seems akin to telling someone that they should have used "whom" instead of "who." And honestly, if someone said to me, "This is a quotation from BookX" I would think that the sentence sounded awkward. |
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