Respect

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 2:35 pm

Metal, I'm not American so I can't really answer what was originally a survey-style question. But it would be nice if I somehow did all your research for you, I'm sure.

If you can answer it without going into the rights and wrong of it - and, yes, I have feelings about the form myself, but they have, at this moment, nothing to do with the question posed - then we can talk.

Sorry, but I really don't see how anyone can talk when you refuse to ever admit that you too have feelings that shape the discussion in question itself. I suggest you shrug off the flaky academic hypocritical charade and just lay your cards on the table (but then, you more or less have by, as I've said, posting other threads where you clearly favour the present perfect over past simple, whenever there appears to be a choice). And you're not exactly the most helpful person yourself:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 4288#14288

My amazing memory also enabled me to recall this:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 9443#29443

I suppose that even if loads of Americans actually prefer present perfect or can't give you a straight answer you'll still have a bee in your bonnet about us all not switching to that (awful) American English, but then will start bemoaning the linguistic imperialism of the change or something. (Tip: If the flak gets a bit too much you could shrug it all off by claiming to have actually been arguing for linguistic diversity).

Apologies if your continual denigration(s) of AE were tongue in cheek, but a serious linguist would probably avoid making any such wisecracks at all, no?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 5:13 pm

But it would be nice if I somehow did all your research for you, I'm sure.

I think not.

Sorry, but I really don't see how anyone can talk when you refuse to ever admit that you too have feelings that shape the discussion in question itself.

Really?

My amazing memory also enabled me to recall this:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... 9443#29443

More than your memory, I'd say it's your obsession with me that allows you to find such links. In my memory, your posts just merge into one mass of tripe.

(Tip: If the flak gets a bit too much you could shrug it all off by claiming to have actually been arguing for linguistic diversity).

I've suggested you to include diversity in your posts for years, but I still haven't seen it happen. Just the same old, "I must get Metal outta here" nonsense.

Give it a rest, Fluffed.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:00 pm

I started a thread on this topic almost a year ago:
http://forums.eslcafe.com/teacher/viewt ... highlight=
The only thing that's changed since then is that pretty much every poster has got into a flame war with Metal at some point, which, apparently is everyone else's fault because we can't see how hypocritical we are.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:17 pm

lolwhites wrote: The only thing that's changed since then is that pretty much every poster has got into a flame war with Metal at some point, which, apparently is everyone else's fault because we can't see how hypocritical we are.

Love that "pretty much". What's 90% of not very many regular posters?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:48 pm

Yes yes yes, Metal, every poster other than you is a hypocrite (thanks lolwhites for saying the same thing).

'90% of not very many regular posters' equals all the people who've been put off of posting anything by your behaviour.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:53 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:Yes yes yes, Metal, every poster other than you is a hypocrite
Hm. Don't see where I said that.

'90% of not very many regular posters' equals all the people who've been put off of posting anything by your behaviour.
Fluff, if there was nothing on TV tonight, I'd gladly keep you compamny and give you space to vent your feelings, but a documentary on the mating habits of abelones has just begun and I don't want to miss it.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:59 pm

90% of not very many regular posters' equals all the people who've been put off of posting anything by your behaviour.

Exactly. When I posted something on Metal's "Present Perfect in AE" thread that backed him up, he respected it. But contradict him at your peril.

Love that "pretty much". What's 90% of not very many regular posters?

Classic Metal response; picks the one bit of the post he has an easy response to and ignores the rest.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:38 pm

But contradict him at your peril.

Are you any different?

Classic Metal response; picks the one bit of the post he has an easy response to and ignores the rest.

Classic Lolwhites avoidance technique.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 5:55 am

Are you any different?

Yes.

Classic Lolwhites avoidance technique.

No, just pointing out what you do. If anyone's avoiding anything here, it's you.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 6:13 am

lolwhites wrote:
Are you any different?
Yes.

In your dreams.

Classic Lolwhites avoidance technique.
No, just pointing out what you do. If anyone's avoiding anything here, it's you.

Bring it on.

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 6:29 am

Bring it on.

What's the point? You'll just deny everything and/or say "Well you're just as bad nah nah na naaah nah!" Fluffy, Revel and I have repeatedly explained what we object to in your conduct, Lori has pointed out how you start threads then attack people who join them, and Stephen Jones once called you a "patronising little twerp".
Noone else has attracted anything like that level of criticism, yet it doesn't seem to have once occurred to you that when everything is coming in your direction, you're probably in the wrong lane.

No doubt this post will reappear in a quotation box with some one-line "witty" reposte, as usual. There's no need to "bring it on" as it's all been said before, and ignored. I expect no better now, frankly.

revel · Post by **revel** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:44 am

deleted

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:51 am

Well, I really got this one started, didn’t I?

Pleased with yourself?

I think what got my goat was being called a prescriptivist.

Maybe you shouldn't spout typically prescriptivist jargon, without qualifying you meaning:

Perhaps, probably, they are interchanged by people who live in areas where the interchange is accepted or by people who slept during English class in HSH, or where the majority of people are immigrants who have learned English as a second language and have not dominated the subtlety of the use of the two “tenses”.

Perhaps because I’ve been using the same old material based on descriptive observation for the past 27 years.

So you've not worked for a language academy in all that time, right?

In everything I read on the two ideas, I found the comment that indicated that they should be complimentary, though with a sometimes tense relationship, and are not necessarily opposites in thought trends.

They are often (forget "should be") complimentary, but you missed the complimentary bit in your posts on my topic.

I don’t mean to be snide or even disrespectful when I point out that those who paid attention in Language Arts class in High School tended to use English “better” than those who shot spit wads at the teacher’s back. I also don’t mean to be snide or disrespectful of immigrants (I am myself one) who have difficulties with certain structures of English. I was once a factory worker and found that my follow workers in general used a level of English that was not at all accepted when I got around to paying my university classes.

Just tell us whether you think the use of the past simple over the present perfect, in situations where most BrE speakers would use the present perfect, is a sympton of the things you refer to in that quote? The present perfect is said to be on the decline in AmE. Are you saying it is the people you mention in your post that are to blame for that fact?

And, I have never used name calling to get my point across.

If it were only name calling that caused offense in this world, eh?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 12:58 pm

Prescriptivists think they are doing everyone a favour by idealizing away from actual usage, but that rather leaves the usage "lying" around to "confuse" the "unwary" who've lapped up the prior BS.

Not that that's aimed at you, revel, just offering my quick take on things. Did you follow all the threads about prescriptivism that seemed to crop up in your posting absence?

Anuradha Chepur · Post by **Anuradha Chepur** » Sat Oct 13, 2007 2:15 pm

Fluff does the same. Gets all bossy, arrogant, disrespectful

I can't disagree more with any other hypothesis.
In my view, Fluffy is the most jolly poster around. And my favourite on AL (Metal comes close, though).