----- Original Message -----
From: "J. van Baardwijk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Brin-L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 6:05 PM
Subject: Re: Attack
> At 14:39 14-9-01 -0500, Dan Minette wrote:
> >Not exactly, that's why I asked it as a question. You said "The only
reason
> >why I might have less objections is that your version does not already
put
> >the blame on a specific person when there is
> > no evidence that this person is indeed guilty."
> >
> >I took "there is no evidence" as meaning that evidence did not exist. Did
> >you mean something else?
> >
> >If you just didn't know about evidence, then the usual statement is
> >
> >"I know of no credible evidence." Stating it as a fact indicates that
you
> >have some basis for stating it, not that it is just an opinion.
>
> I'm sorry, but I have neither the time nor the money to have each and
every
> one of my posts checked by someone who majored in English, to see if there
> might be some chance that someone might misinterpret those messages.
>
Ah, Jeroen you wrote something that had a very clear meaning in English.
Since you have often written very well nuanced posts in English, a
reasonable person might assume that you also know what expressing something
in present tense means. If your knowledge of English is unusually
inconsistant, brilliant at some times, and not even elementary at others,
how in the world can someone know what your posts mean without asking?
What I also find puzzling is that most of the mistakes I have seen have
given an unfortunate anti-US or anti-Israel slant that you say wasn't your
origional intent. This is puzzling to me is that language mistakes should
be random. Once in a while I would expect a misunderstanding of a second
language to result in you accidently writing that the US is a wonderful
country or that Israel is great. But, I don't remember ever having to ask
why you now seem to think Israel is always right.
In short, if I just read your posts for vocabulary, use of grammer, etc.,
and didn't see things that indicated where you came from, I'd guess you were
an native English speaker with at least some college. I've seen college
educated Americans with an inferior command of the English language. Yet,
you do make mistakes that I've never heard with recent Mexican immigrants
that I know who have a much poorer command of the English language.
Perhaps the easist way to remedy this is to not take the questions about
intent as hostile, and just answer them in order to clarify things. If you
clarify things, then I can understand what you mean and move on. But, I
think I should be able to start with the meaning of the words you write, and
then accept clarification if the words you wrote did not covey what you
meant.
Speaking of which, I would appreciate an answer to the question I asked
above, so I can improve my understanding of what you meant to write.
There's no hard feelings on my part at all. I'll be happy to carry my share
of the load of improving commuinications.
Dan M.
