On Oct 18, 2010, at 6:41 PM, [email protected] wrote: > But my claim was that this is exactly what was not happening in the exchanges between the several listers talking about "rules". No one said "That's not what I meant," because, suspect I, it simply didn't occur to them that though they were all using the same word, they had different notions behind the usages.
It would have gotten to that point soon enough, I suspect. Or at least to the point where one person would say, "By 'rule,' I mean xyz." When you participate merely as a referee of linguistic or logical usage, I stop reading with close attention. You're being a hallway monitor. But when you directly engage the subject and propose your alternate views, then I tend to pay more attention to your remarks on clarity or fuzziness in terminology in the particular cases at hand. > From the very first appearance of the word on this thread I realized I couldn't be sure what the lister had in mind. But you never can be sure. You can only surmise that you are close, or if both of you are in a dialogue, then the other person can give you clues, like the guy who waves signals to the pilot landing on the aircraft carrier. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
