Re: PTD was the most-respected of the AUE regulars ...

On Fri, 26 Jul 2024 8:51:31 +0000, Antonio Marques wrote:

Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> wrote:

On Thu, 25 Jul 2024 12:41:13 -0700, HenHanna <HenHanna@devnull.tb>
wrote:
>

On 7/22/2024 9:40 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:

PTD was a regular in sci.lang via Googlegroups, and suddenly jumped
into aue as a result of something that was crossposted there.

>
When was that?

>
I can't remember exactly, but probably about 15-20 years ago.
>

The instance I remember most was when he denied that the town of El
Paso, Illinois, existed, and continued to deny its existence no matter
what evidence was put before him.

>

(thanks... i'll look that up)

>

The instance I remember most was when he (PTD) opined that Most
Chinese words consisted of 2 Chinese characters.
>
I and another person gave examples
("Wo ai ni",
Wood, Water, sky, river, person, paper, ...
Most basic words and verbs are 1-character)
>
but that was when  PTD  became  [quintessentially PTD].
>
>
i couldn't quite tell
1. if he was  convinced of some fact, info, or assertion, or
2. if he was  just being like a 5 year old boy.

>
3. He was right (as usual), as in this specific case. That some of the
core
vocabulary is the shortest applies to almost any language and as such is
not relevant to the discussion.

I would say the same as all of that but "as usual".  (I just gave a
false
"proof" that most English words are short.)

In his own field he had some useful information, but outside his field
he could be very dogmatic about things that he simply got wrong.
>

>
People desperately tried to jump on every unqualified statement of his
for some interpretation that would make him 'wrong'.

In a.u.e., where linguistics isn't the topic as often as in sci.lang,
his
posts could have been a textbook of falsehoods, ad hominems,
misleading statements, half-truths, misunderstandings, unstated
assumptions, unhelpful attempts to help, rhetorical questions in
place of arguments, tastes and opinions and controversial ideas
stated as facts, and just about everything else that could provoke
a response.  Was he doing it deliberately?  I don't know.  I just
stopped responding to him except for the occasional post that
was free of that stuff.
There were signs in the last few years he was here that he was
trying to do better--for instance, indirectly acknowledging
(usually by making an excuse) that he had said something
untrue.

What almost everyone does
is raise an objection to that course of action, but he consistently
chose
to ignore that path, which in a way makes the other feel not
acknowledged
as an interlocutor. That caused a huge amount of resentment, but who is
to
blame? The answer depends on the degree of good faith on the part of
those trying to 'correct' him.

As I recall, he did sometimes complain in a.u.e. about being nitpicked
(while doing his own nitpicking).

Then of course he may over the course of years have been wrong about
things
he pronounced himself categorically on, but he was always very cautious
with that.
>
There was stuff about which he said questionable things, but not while
pretending to be some kind of authority.

I never saw a difference between his presentation of his knowledge of
writing systems and his presentation of non-linguistic things he thought
he heard about sometime decades ago.

Maybe he'll get back one of these days.

..
If he does, I hope people in a.u.e. will avoid correcting him.
--
Jerry Friedman