[Ads-l] "man" avoidance

Mon Sep 26 13:44:34 UTC 2016

"So it may not be "man" avoidance, or gender avoidance. It may be poor focus
than more anything else." - I think you put your finger on it!

(Also, I laughed aloud at "armadillos." Easily amused...)

On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 9:36 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> A further weirdness stems from our prior knowledge that they were all
> "people," not space aliens, armadillos, etc.
>
> It's like the middle-schooler who writes, _Ulysses_ is a book by a man
> named James Joyce."
>
> "A man named" adds nothing to the sentence and (to a grownup) sounds
> silly.  Similarly, "people" adds nothing to the article or to our
> understanding.
>
> So it may not be "man" avoidance, or gender avoidance. It may be poor focus
> than more anything else.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 9:03 AM, Robin Hamilton <
> robin.hamilton3 at virginmedia.com> wrote:
>
> > I entirely agree (and I'm aware at this point that I seem to have stuck
> my
> > nose into the middle of a conversation where I missed the beginning -- I
> > only began to notice it when the term "erasure" popped up.  With that
> > caveat ...)
> >
> > My own feeling, when it comes to TMI, is more is better -- you can always
> > ignore extraneous stuff, filter it out, or whatever, but you can't
> replace
> > missing links.
> >
> > (As, for instance, at the moment I could quite happily murder whoever it
> > was connected with the Old Bailey Online who decided to omit the names of
> > the printers, frequently the last line of the text, when it came to
> > publishing on-line transcripts.)
> >
> > But there is a flip side, the information/noise ratio.  You can suppress
> > information by omitting it (Too Little Information), but you can
> > *also* conceal it by drowning it in noise -- TMI.
> >
> > The most usual case where this occurs is probably slipping riders,
> totally
> > unconnected with the substance of the Act, into otherwise unrelated
> bills,
> > on the assumption that no one reads to the end -- TMI!
> >
> > So I'm mostly singing from the same songsheet as you here, Jon, with that
> > caveat.
> >
> > (Though this may simply because you're a nicer person than me, and never
> > succeeded in slipping a useful item through a staff meeting by simply
> > droning on and on and on for so long that no one noticed what was
> happening
> > by the end.  Sort of like a filibuster for Evil Academics.  Works too.  I
> > especially loved the expression of some of my colleagues faces when they
> > woke up one morning, read the minutes, and realised that instead of, as
> > they'd intended, eliminating Shakespeare from the undergraduate syllabus,
> > they'd signed off on increasing the number of texts from three to five.
> >
> >           "Did we really agree to that?"
> >
> >           "Well, it's there in the minutes, so I suppose ..."    )
> >
> > 'Nuff -- time I retired my hobbyhorse to the land that time forgot.
> >
> > Robin
> >
> > On 26 September 2016 at 13:17 Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > wrote:
> >
> >
> > Part of the weirdness of "people" in this context is that the article is
> > focused almost entirely on the pilots.
> >
> > So it would have been clearer and better (IMO) to have said (e.g.),
> "about
> > a hundred pilots and some two hundred medical and support personnel,
> > including two female nurses."
> >
> > TMI? I don't think so. None of this information is common knowledge. That
> > makes it interesting.
> >
> > JL
> >
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 3:59 AM, Robin Hamilton <
> > robin.hamilton3 at virginmedia.com> wrote:
> >
> > > ... to add to the [current] confusion, you'all still stick to letter
> and
> > > folio
> > > sizes [as in England in 1700], while the rest of the world has sensibly
> > > moved on
> > > to the A0-A6 fold-it-in-half-and-it's-exactly-half-size version of
> > paper.
> > >
> > > Not to speak of the old style/new style dating that's an issue at this
> > > point in
> > > time, around 1700 ... Fortunately, the Norris murder happened during
> the
> > > summer
> > > months.
> > >
> > > Back to the Norris Murder. It's like watching a slow-motion train-wreck
> > > -- it's
> > > perfectly bloody obvious that the Dutch innkeeper and his wife were
> > > innocent,
> > > and it's equally obvious, even without the benefit of
> > > three-hundred-years-later-we-know-the-end-already hindsight, that
> > they're
> > > going
> > > to swing.
> > >
> > > What is *really* unnerving is watching the Establishment Machine swing
> > into
> > > action to revise the narrative and ensure their conviction. I used to
> > > admire
> > > Elizabeth Mallet, who was a fairly feisty lady, and still do admire her
> > > deceased
> > > husband David, but jeezus, in this case ... Talk about selling out.
> > >
> > > All of which is why I screamed with delight when Flourish brought up
> the
> > > issue
> > > of erasure (in its non-Derridan sense).
> > >
> > > Justice for the Van Burghs! (even if it *is* 300 years too late)
> > >
> > > Robin
> > >
> > > > On 26 September 2016 at 07:49 Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Mon, Sep 26, 2016 at 1:50 AM, Robin Hamilton
> > > > <robin.hamilton3 at virginmedia.com mailto:robin.hamilton3@
> > virginmedia.com
> > > >
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > > 1 sheet ([2]p.
> > > > >
> > > > > >
> > > > Apparently, that's not Empire-wide. When I was in grad school in the
> > > > '70's, an Aussie classmate was sneeringly surprised to discover that,
> > > here in
> > > > The World, one side of a sheet of paper is regarded as equal to one
> > > page, so
> > > > that, e.g. a "25-page paper due over the weekend" consists of a mere
> 25
> > > > *sides* and not of an actual 25 *pages* and is, therefore, nothing to
> > > worry
> > > > about before Sunday night.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > -Wilson
> > > > -----
> > > > All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> > > to
> > > > come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> > > > -Mark Twain
> > > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org