> -----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
> Van: The Fool [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Verzonden: Sunday, September 16, 2001 6:50 AM
> Aan: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Onderwerp: Re: Language difficulties
> My thoughts, as an outsider:
>
> His command of the language is superlative. It is logically
> self-sustained. There are no obvious grammatical errors. It is
> impossible to believe that what he writes is being misunderstood
> because he 'doesn't understand English very well'. It is clear that
> he understands what he is writing, and what he reads.
Naturally, *I* always understand what I am writing. The problem lies in the
finer nuances of a language; it is the understanding of those finer nuances
that seperates the people with a good understanding of the language from the
people with an excellent understanding of the language.
If you were to understand Dutch at the same level as I understand English,
you too would sometimes make a mistake that you would not notice, but which
would be obvious to a native speaker.
> When he states that he is being misunderstood that can only be taken as
> a cop-out.
You just gave an example of where my knowledge of English falls short. What
exactly is a "cop-out"? (It is not listed in my dictionary.)
> He can't support his words logically, so must resort to excuses.
I do NOT resort to excuses. I only expect to be given some benefit of the
doubt, based on the fact that as a non-native English speaker, my command of
the language is less than it would be if I were a native speaker.
> Now it also seems to me that he consistently makes several logical
> errors in his arguments, namely the 'post hoc ergo proptor hoc' error.
The WHAT error? Unlike my understanding of English, my understanding of
Latin is non-existent. Please translate.
> Furthermore there have been several instances that he has outright
> refused to answer questions directed at him. The 'landmine' thread
> for example has several of these.
There are several possible reasons why a question was not aswered. It could
be that answering was postponed (and later forgotten) due to lack of time.
It could be that a question was so ridiculous that it would be a waste of
time to answer it. It could be that a question was not answered because the
question had been asked and answered earlier. There might be other valid
reasons as well. I have not, however, explicitly stated even once that I
outright refuse to answer a question.
(Correction for the language nitpickers: I do not remember stating even once
that I outright refuse to answer a question.)
NOTE: At closer examination of that thread, you will notice that I have
asked several questions (to several people) that have not been answered
either.
> The only reason for this is that he could not answer those questions
> and maintain his position. They were not in his 'paradigm' and he
> could not address them.
Other people have not answered my questions. Do you believe that they too
did not answer them because they would then no longer be able to maintain
their position? Do you believe that those questions were not in those
posters' 'paradigm' and they could therefore not address them?
> It has been shown that some people do not see things that are outside
> of their paradigm. In other words they ignore everything that
> contradicts their world view. Another word for this is 'dogmatism'.
Apparently you think I am one of those people. Do you believe the same thing
is true for those posters that did not answer my questions, or is this
position reserved for only those people that do not share your worldview?
Jeroen
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