From: Mike Dougherty (msd001@gmail.com)
Date: Thu Mar 23 2006 - 19:48:55 MST
I think it's good to simply not respond to emotional posts.
I think it's also good to not respond to posts emotionally.
qualifiers:
good = a subjective measure of positive or negative reinforcement for
behavior
emotional posts = those which the reader suspects were written by a
defensively reactive author
respond emotionally = allowing the reader's beliefs to obscure the writer's
intended point
it's = a contraction of "it" and "is"; effectively a declaration of supposed
state
I think = a dubious assertion in any context
If all two sentence posts required this kind of qualification, more
substantial discussion would be so tedious as to be completely unreadable.
aside to Richard - I don't think you write any more or less emotionally than
anyone else. You may fugue a bit more on the consequences than I do... I
feel it would be more of a "serious social problem" for the reader if an
email to this list would cause a negative emotional response.
I thought to add META to this subject line, but did not want to cause
another thread to start in threaded mail readers.
"I have to laugh at myself, because laughing at everyone else is considered
impolite" -me
On 3/23/06, Richard Loosemore <rpwl@lightlink.com> wrote:
>
>
> Ah, you may need to be a little careful, yourself, about those tricky
> universal quantifiers ;-), as in my phrase "please STOP assuming that
> *everything* I write is emotional...."
>
> This is different from "please DO assume that everything I write is NOT
> emotional".
>
> The word *everything*, in the original, allows me to say that I am
> unemotional 99% of the time, whilst at the same time reserving the right
> to emphasize one small point with a carefully chosen emotive word when
> it is appropriate.
>
> Was it actually appropriate? Well, in this case, where I was referring
> to unjustified emotional behavior in *someone* *else* (one single
> individual), the context makes it fairly reasonable to describe that
> person's behavior as "asinine".
>
> I doubt that it is evidence of a "serious social problem" on my part.
>
> [That said, I have just written about a possible misunderstanding of my
> comment.]
>
> Richard Loosemore.
>
>
> Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 23, 2006 at 02:25:58PM -0500, Richard Loosemore wrote:
> >> [And I stand by what I said (the word "asinine" was perhaps a little
> >> strong, but I would argue that it was appropriate).
> > [snip]
> >> More generally:
> >>
> >> Would people please STOP assuming that everything I write is emotional
> >> and angry .... I have had several comments come out of the blue in the
> >> last few months, asking me to be less emotional in situations where I
> >> have shown no emotion or anger. I find myself completely bemused by
> >> these comments!
> >
> > If you think that you can use the word "asinine" *and* have people
> > respect your request to believe that you are not being emotional you
> > either are not a native speaker of English or you have some sort of
> > serious social problem. The two are mutually incompatible.
> >
> > -Robin
> >
>
>
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