Keeping the Society's door open

[Gerald Cohen]

At 7:03 PM -0400 6/4/01, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>I'm of mixed minds on this issue:  In the past I've supported a closed list
>(mainly when the ranters against Ebonics/AAVE were on board), but in the
>matter of EOL/BilingEd, it seems to me we've had a fairly decent,
>respectful dialogue--and if we've provided some useful facts and
>information, that's all to the good.  Frankly, I'd rather have a good
>knock-down, drag-out debate on these types of issues than restrict the list
>to what seems increasingly to be an endless citation of words and their
>origins.  At least we're talking about real-world language issues!

    I agree with Beverly Flanigan on the desirability of keeping the
Society's door open. (But please don't knock etymology/word usage;
words ARE an integral part of language). The contributions to our
discussions come from people of various backgrounds. If we ever
limited participation to just "professionals," we would lose much
valuable input.

---Gerald Cohen