Oh, man. Michael, I'm sorry, I've really mislead you on my tone.
"And yet, you sound far more snobbish than do I."
Would it help to say that was intended?
"Since you're wrong about the snobbism claim, the rest of your
construct falls apart."
Yeah, but that's _if_ I was wrong about you being a snob. However,
that's not a factual claim based on your ability to say, "I'm not a
snob, therefore you are wrong to call me a snob." I'm _attributing_
snobbishness (somewhat facetiously), which can be fended by a
counter-claim (e.g., "traditional presciptivism isn't snobbish"), but
you nor anyone else by themselves has a privileged position in
ascertaining the "factual correctness" of those public actions. We
are part of community that will weigh claims and counter-claims.
That's why I said "communal object." But brisk declarations of
dialectical victory about what "traditional prescriptivism" correctly is
or isn't doesn't seem an available move. At best, you're saying
that I didn't have your dictionary available to me. It's as if you're
saying that I can say you are factually wrong about _your_ claim
about my snobbishness by a simple "uh-unh: whatever I'm doing I
define to be not snobby" and then go on acting snobbishly.
This was one weird pseudo-conversation, Michael. I thought we
were both in on the joke of it. I thought it was clear that I wasn't
taking the conversation seriously, and I coulda' swore you
weren't, and it _was_ "all about style and attitude." I had largely
given up such stylization in the MD, because it too often caused
more polemical trouble than it was worth. But since I've been
acting so serious for so long around here, I thought I'd remind
people I could still have fun. This turned out not to be much fun.
Sorry.
We may have differences about stuff, but I wasn't taking any of
them seriously. Now I fear that my fun has got me stuck in a box
in your mind I shan't get out of.
Matt
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