[MD] Irony

[Michael R. Brown]

Hi, Matt Kundert -

>>> if you really were the snobbish, "traditional presciptivist" you say you 
>>> are
>> I didn't. "As a traditional prescriptivist regarding the backbone of 
>> language, I don't go with the trendy second meaning." I note you didn't 
>> quote me - purely accidentally.\
> What were the quotation marks I did use doing, I wonder?  They weren't 
> scare-quotes.  Hmm.  Perhaps, as I understood my non-accidental actions

It’s no accident you're left-tending. : ) This prefatory flourish is all 
about style and attitude, and little about what you actually put on the 
page. The left usually focuses on intention (real or imagined), the right on 
execution. We need both.

>  I was using your words

"the snobbish, [X] you say you are" Contrafactual - and a fail on basic 
syntax with the comma.

> to describe the communal object you were describing (i.e. you)

You're factually incorrect, too: traditional prescriptivism isn't snobbish.

> > As we see, and as is so often the case these days, this is a detection 
> > of a non-existent contradiction.
> Oh my! the royal We!

Another finding of a non-existent problem. It is the *polite* we. An 
unfamiliar mode for you.

> I still fail to see the non-existent contradiction

No doubt. I'm not interested in your hall-of-mirrors effects. Since you're 
wrong about the snobbism claim, the rest of your construct falls apart.

> there's still less of a backbone on wikipedia than "traditional" sources 
> of information with more stringent editorial apparatuses.

Again, all this about attitude and purported social status and not about 
accuracy. Do you spend an awful lot of time on the computer? Your history 
sense is also off: as of 2005, Wikipedia was found to be about as good as 
the Britannica: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html

> not to knock the virtues of wikipedia.

One of the reasons I cited it is because of Wiki's open-source quality.

> against the ethos of snobs, as every democratic ethos is.

How airy. And yet, you sound far more snobbish than do I. Enjoy.


MRB
http://www.fuguewriter.com