Dear JC, Thanks for the corrections. I had in fact typed THE but reasoned that this would imply yhat only one wrong track was available; hence changed it to A. But on checking find that neither of these is found in the book of Idioms that I possess. This is not to justify the idiom that I used. I thought "off on a tangent" would better express what I wanted to say. But then this too is not found in my book. Perhaps my resources are limited. Yours is no doubt a good advice to a googler; however I would not restrict it to medical matters. Other, especially Historical, matters would also demand due diligence. But don’t you think that you are putting too heavy an onus of responsibility on the innocent googler; how would a googler, five or ten years hence, know whether Churchill and Fredrick were politicians, journalists, historians or what-have-you? Instead, don’t you think we, as posters, must exercise that due diligence and thus avoid confusing the googler? And, mind you, this was extraneous "info" which was entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. It is such disservice to a future googler that I consider "unforgiveable." It is non-malicious, no doubt; but potentially dangerous and could have been avoide. Contrary to the popular perception, K did not come into Konkani post 1961; you will find it in the first Konkani novel (Kristanv Ghorabo by Eduardo J. Bruno de Sousa) published in 1911. In that Kokani is written with a tilde on both the O and the I; similarly the A in Kristav has a tilde on A. Best regards, Sebastian Borges
From: "J. Colaco < jc>" <[email protected]> To: Sebastian Borges <[email protected]> Cc: frederick rico noronha goanet <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, 1 May 2011 6:57 PM Subject: Re: [Goanet] "Konkani" before 1961 Dear Prof. Borges, You are quite correct. "Gone off on a handle" is indeed not a recognised expression in the English language, neither is 'went on a wrong track' (went on THE wrong track). All this to suggest that we all make errors ....and we should not IMHO deem the non-malicious errors of others as 'unforgiveable'. wrt the rest of your post, I'd add the following: One should always do due diligence before accepting statements made by politicians, partisans and by blog-websites (esp wrt medical matters). good wishes jc Sebastian Borges <[email protected]> wrote: Dear JC, Thanks for the post. Perhaps "gone off on a handle" was not the correct expression, I am not sure. I meant he went on a wrong track, unnecessarily, without a thought. If I find anything worthwhile regarding the correctness of my expression, I shall get back to you. For the present, please accept my apologies. Wrt #2, I find that too much of spurious "data" is getting into the internet database. And I am sure that you will agree with me on this because a lot of spurious "medical facts" are doing the same leading to several bouts of arguments in which you have yourself been involved on Goanet. When such spurious facts reach lay persons like me, they are liable to create havoc. This is why such interventions are unforgiveable. For instance, if you google for "Manipuri language five scripts" you will get Navhind Times news report of the proceedings of the Goa Legislative Assembly wherein Churchill Alemao made the claim that Manipur Government recognises five scripts for Manipuri language. In fact, Manipuri language has only two scripts out of which only "Bengali script" is accepted in the Official Language Act of Manipur. But an innocent googler will go away with the "knowledge" that Manipuri has five scripts all recognised by the Manipur government. This is my fear. I have never claimed to be infallible; I am always subject to correction. Regards. Sebastian Borges
