ad hominem vs. intellectual inquiry

[a telegraph to your soul]

On Sun, 9 Aug 1998, Adassovsky wrote:

> P. Jones wrote:

Umm, no - I'm Douglas Taylor.  P. Jones is just referenced in my sig.  =)

> Well, when I am fed up, I put the message in the trash and respect other
> people enough to let them discuss. There seems to be cultural differences
> between USA and European people concerning the perception of such attitudes.

Except Tsuji is not from the US, at a guess.  What with his references to
growing up Japanese, living in Japan, going to Japanese university, et
alia.

> I don't believe you really think so. The original message was pedantic,
> directed right to my specialty, and implicated that language teachers from
> all romance countries consciously lied because they were paid for it, so
> that  all our University system is not free. Such an opinion deserved an
> answer.

Actually, I do think so.  But if in your Gallic fervor to defend your
language and institutions you choose to believe otherwise, there is
nothing I can do to convince you.

> Now, I propose a subject, instead of going to the beach, although the
> weather is very fine here on the Mediterranean :
>
> Is French an "idiom", or a "Language" ?
> I've just looked up in my dictionnary ( The concise Oxford dictionnary of
> current English) and found :
> Language : a vocabulary and way of using it prevalent in one or more
 countries.
> Idiom : language of a people or country.

I don't have a copy of a "real" dictionary handy - my den is a mess.  So
off of Microsoft Bookshelf 98, I grabbed the following definition (one
that doesn't simply "idiom" to complete nonsense):
idiom --  noun
1.      A speech form or an expression of a given language that is
peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the
individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on.
2.      The specific grammatical, syntactic, and structural character of a
given language.
3.      Regional speech or dialect.
4.      a. A specialized vocabulary used by a group of people; jargon:
legal idiom. b. A style or manner of expression peculiar to a given
people: "Also important is the uneasiness I've always felt at cutting
myself off from my idiom, the American habits of speech and jest and
reaction, all of them entirely different from the local variety" (S.J.
Perelman).
5.      A style of artistic expression characteristic of a particular
individual, school, period, or medium: the idiom of the French
impressionists; the punk rock idiom.

Excerpted from The American Heritage. Dictionary of the English Language,
Third Edition  ) 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version
licensed from INSO Corporation; further reproduction and distribution in
accordance with the Copyright Law of the United States. All rights
reserved.

--
"Douglas, if you set me on fire, I will scream and burn." - P. Jones