predictions

[John Myhill]

Brian MacWhinney wrote:

>
>It seems to me that it is a free country and anyone can say anything that
>they want, as long as it is not libelous.  I'm sure that when Fritz was
>being interviewed he told the reporter that linguists and psycholinguists
>disagreed sharply on the interpretation of the genetic data.  And probably
>the reporter just decided to ignore his remarks on that issue.  And
>undoubtedly Fritz, like many of us who have been in a similar position, was
>shocked to see how his story was reported.
>

First of all, I am not questioning FN's legal right to say what he said; I hope
that I was not interpreted as suggesting that, and I assume that BW does
not believe there are no non-legal bases for criticizing actions. Secondly,
if
your feeling is that it is so likely that you will be shocked at how your
story is reported, maybe you better not say anything; if your purpose for
cooperating with the interview is to give information to the wider public, and
there is an expectation that things will get screwed up, why say anything? Leave
this to people who are SERIOUS about interacting with non-linguists and
will respond to misquotes NOT by throwing up their hands and saying 'I
was misrepresented' but by devoting a major effort to correcting the situation,
if necessary sacrificing their research agendas and position within the field
for this purpose.      John Myhill