Re: Proofreading of a part of a document about "gender neutrality"
Andrew Suffield <asuffield@debian.org> wrote:
> Heh heh. Heh heh. Heh heh. He said "manus". Heh heh.
Don't laugh. If you have something to say, well, say
it. Laughing is not an argument.
> Come on, the only possible conclusion of this line
> of reasoning is
> that communication between two people is impossible.
> Absolutely
> anything you say can be misinterpreted in this way.
> The only possible
> conclusion is that this is a property of the reader,
> not the writer.
You're optimistic, aren't you?
You remind me of the discussions we had in school when
I was little, in which everybody followed this line
whatever you were talking about.
There's a book by Arthur Schopenhauer called "Die
Kunst, Recht zu behalten", ("El arte de tener razón"
in Spanish, "The art of being in the right" or "The
Art of Controversy" in English) where all those tricks
are explained (how to win an argument without having
real reasons behind)
You can find it here in English:
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/controversy/index.html
if you're interested, but I must advice that is hard
to read.
> Anybody who reads a piece of text and expects to be
> offended, will
> be. Anybody who reads the same piece of text and
> expects not to be
> offended, won't be. The contents of the text do not
> matter.
BTW, we're making some definite comments on certain
words, and justifying it. You seem to want to take it
to such a general and absolute point in where anything
has sense. Whatever you take out to the infinitum in
this way would be nonsense. You want to make nonsense
of everything? well, it's up to you. We're not
discussing absolutes here, just practical things.
It seems you have something in common with MJR in this
point. You don't seem to mind at all of other people's
feelings.
Extract from MJR' blog:
---------------------------------------------------
"Advice for dealing with the flamepit"
I've tried being sensitive to the feelings of other
people, but there are six billion other people
stomping
around the planet, and each one is completely
different. My brain is barely big enough to know what
my own body is feeling. I mean, sometimes when I get
an
itch, I scratch three different body parts before I
find it. [...]
There is only one effective response when accused of
insensitivity: Accuse your accuser of a sin called
political correctness. Political correctness is a
totally meaningless phrase, similar to
"insensitivity."
Neither has any useful meaning because they both
describe every person on earth. [...] Yet many people
are so bothered by the label "politically correct"
that
they will withdraw their accusations of insensitivity
and apologize for being so testy. This is another case
of stupidity triumphing over stupidity. It shouldn't
work, but it does. You might as well take advantage of
it.
(Source: Scott Adams, "Dilbert: The Joy of Work")
---------------------------------------------------
Whatever you say in this line, we already know the
trick :P
Miry
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