Positive or negative?

[Duncan Powrie]

Oh, Shun, you did indeed post quite a number of good examples in your last post (I only "saw" the "...until these days" ones, which I don't think we can really accept as standard at all, as SJ said).

I still need to examine them, and think about your purpose in presenting them, though (but I won't have much time soon to give it a LOT of further thought We wanna-be linguists gotta eat and skip and play play play etc in the real world too sometimes!).

[Duncan Powrie]

Duncan,

You wrote:
> We won't really know unless more
> context is supplied, will we?
>
My reply: That is the point. We don't know whether positive or negative. That is why we discuss here. If as you say we really don't know it on one-sentence basis, that is still a conclusion, from our discussion, and most of all, from the examples I have quoted. So, I suggest we treat my quoted examples fairly.

Oh, Shun, I forgot to add that judging from my post from which you quoted, and your reply immediately above, we would appear to (already) substantially differ in our views, and I will simply leave it up to other readers to decide who(se approach) is "correct", rather than reiterate what I have already said.

[shuntang]

Oh, Shun, you did indeed post quite a number of good examples in your last post (I only "saw" the "...until these days" ones, which I don't think we can really accept as standard at all, as SJ said).

I still need to examine them, and think about your purpose in presenting them, though (but I won't have much time soon to give it a LOT of further thought We wanna-be linguists gotta eat and skip and play play play etc in the real world too sometimes!).

To you, it is very easy. Anything disagreeable to you is regarded as crazy and non-standard stuff. Can we prove ourselves standard and not crazy? No? Then we are crazy and non-standard.

[Duncan Powrie]

Oh, Shun, you did indeed post quite a number of good examples in your last post (I only "saw" the "...until these days" ones, which I don't think we can really accept as standard at all, as SJ said).

I still need to examine them, and think about your purpose in presenting them, though (but I won't have much time soon to give it a LOT of further thought We wanna-be linguists gotta eat and skip and play play play etc in the real world too sometimes!).

To you, it is very easy. Anything disagreeable to you is regarded as crazy and non-standard stuff. Can we prove ourselves standard and not crazy? No? Then we are crazy and non-standard.

Shun, I do not find what you say disagreeable, although I might be inclined to disagree with it -IF I COULD UNDERSTAND IT. Obviously, until you "prove yourself standard (by standard means)", you will at least be viewed as non-standard (if not crazy - to not use the standard!). See also the next-to-last paragraph below.

Anyway, take me as an example: as might be clear from the majority of my posts, I am not really that interested in argument, but in FACTS, and the latter will surely provide a much better basis for whatever arguments we might want to make.

Unfortunately, I must admit that in the majority of my posts I myself also do indeed argue for or against "something" (generally for Corpus Linguistics, above all), but occassionally I endeavour to present FACTS, and from them actual arguments that could be of some relevance or interest, and believe I generally present things clearly (when I myself am actually clear about whatever, that is!).

It is, of course, a little disappointing that people don't always reply, or reply in ways I didn't expect, or even go off at tangents, but that is to be expected in the process of "negotiating meaning". However, I feel that anyone reading my posts probably understands where I was coming from, and where I stood at the time I wrote the post (even if they didn't have the time, inclination, shared knowledge and assumptions etc to reply promptly, if at all). They can therefore study the FACTS I present, and any conclusions/arguments that I base upon them (and sometimes I find out new things myself that cause me to radically change my views and opinions - see, for example, the "Genderless pronoun" thread, where I drew different conclusions from facts that I only later became aware of and UNDERSTOOD).

So we just have to assume that on this website, silence means your post was interesting or not interesting to people. A lot of replies can mean one of two things: either that your argument was stimulating and got people thinking and appreciating (maybe even thanking you) for your insights, or that it confused or even angered them (and whether you are ultimately wrong or not is besides the point if you have failed to convince people that you are "in fact" right). Your posts generate a good deal of interest, but I'm afraid that they are generally "stimulating" only in the pejorative sense. What makes it all the more puzzling is that in your replies, you don't often address, and never seem to REdress the confusion you are causing, except to say it is due to some kind of mental deficiency or obstinacy on "our" part.

Well, unfortuantely, "we" are mainly composed of western, native English-speaking teachers, and that means that anyone who wants to "join the club", so to speak, has to use rhetoric and discourse that we can understand. We don't insist on these things to maintain exclusivity, but rather because it is a sad fact of life that in our supposedly "international" world, (only) English is the language "everybody" understands (and just think, if I were to try to hold a dialogue with you in my crap Chinese, doubtless I would puzzle or upset you a fair bit too). We are trying to be sympathetic to you, but you don't seem to be at all sympathetic to, or even aware of our "situation".

As a parting shot, I notice that when I went a little "crazy" in the Adult Education forum's "Verb Tense Mystery" thread, you didn't like it one little bit. The main difference between us is that I only did it the once, for humorous effect (and you can see how effective the difference from my usual style is, because I can now draw upon the "aberration" as a weapon in this "argument" I'm having with you).

As ever, I suppose only "we" will get all of that... but even when we are talking just to (amongst?) ourselves, it is a means of developing and maintaining solidarity. BROTHERS!

[Duncan Powrie]

Oh, before I am accused of being a sexist piglet, I should also say, SISTERS! Brothers AND Sisters! (And maybe even, "Brothers and Sisters and People of Indeterminate Gender!" (PIGs) Poking fun at politically correct language there is all.