Chinglish and Childishness--one last try

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

1. It's pretty well attested all over the internet (and has been since before
the web got big in the early 90s) that all caps = screaming.

THIS IS EXACTLY MY POINT. ONLY THREE OF MY WORDS WERE IN CAPS--NOT "ALL" OF
THEM. THE UPPER-CASE WORDS (AS I SAID BEFORE) WERE IN CAPS MERELY FOR EMPHASIS.
THIS WAS PERFECTLY OBVIOUS. CLEARLY, I WAS NOT "SCREAMING"--NO ONE CAN
"SCREAM" JUST ONE WORD IN A SENTENCE AND NOT SOUND TOTALLY WEIRD.

AGAIN, TO PRETEND THAT I WAS "SCREAMING" MERELY DEFLECTED ATTENTION FROM THE
CONTENT OF MY MESSAGE--A RATHER CHILDISH RHETORICAL PLOY.

(BY THE WAY, I AM NOT "SCREAMING" NOW--I AM SIMPLY USING CAPS TO DISTINGUISH
THE WORDS OF "RANDY" FROM MY OWN--ANOTHER USE OF CAPS THAT IS OF LONG STANDING
IN THE ORTHOGRAPHICALLY DEPRIVED WORLD OF E-MAIL.)

LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM> also wrote:
2. You took my bait.   Chinese people can memorize 3000 characters and can
get the gist of a newspaper article.   With 5000 (and that's only
reading, not writing) they can read almost anything -- and they don't
really have to memorize them perfectly.   They can recognize a
character in a word or phrase that they might not recognize alone.

WELL, THIS WAS BAIT WITHOUT A HOOK. MY POINT, AGAIN, WAS THAT IF CHINESE
PEOPLE CAN MEMORIZE THOUSANDS OF CHARACTERS, SO COULD SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH IF
ENGLISH WERE NOT WRITTEN ALPHABETICALLY. (ALL I SAID WAS, "How can someone living
in China really believe that it is 'impossible' for young people to memorize
huge numbers of nonalphabetic symbols in order to make use of a writing
system?")

And LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM> also wrote:
3. So maybe someone on the list (and maybe more than person) has been
throwing around the phrase "alphabetic principle" without understanding exactly what
it is, but that's where other list members can chime in and clarify things.

PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TRYING TO CLARIFY THINGS FOR THE TRUESPEL GUY FOR YEARS,
WITH LITTLE IF ANY POSITIVE RESULTS. HIS MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE "ALPHABETIC
PRINCIPLE" IS HARD-CORE AND ENDURING. I THINK YOU ARE RIGHT THAT THERE IS NO POINT
IN BEING NASTY TO HIM--HE IS A HARMLESS CRANK, JUST ANNOYING. I HAVE VOWED
SEVERAL TIMES TO IGNORE HIS POSTINGS, AND I THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME THAT THAT
WILL ALWAYS BE THE WISE COURSE OF ACTION.



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