the list (fwd)

[Mark A Mandel]

On Wed, 14 Aug 2002, Anne Gilbert wrote:

        [Mark M]
#> I think we need a list FAQ. It should not be a general FAQ, "all about
#> the ADS", though it should include a pointer to the website, and we
#> might some time want to create such a general FAQ. The list FAQ should
#> be brief, telling the reader what the list is about and for, what sort
#> of questions and discussion are welcome, and what is considered out of
#> I enjoy most of the inquiries from the general public, and I agree with
#> whoever said that we want to keep ourselves available as a resource for
#> genuine inquirers, rather than abandoning the field to ignorance and
#> folk etymology, which is ignorance by a nom de guerre.
#
#As a member of the "general public" who is a writer and therefore keenly
#interested in language in all its forms, I cringe whenever I see letters
#like those of Mr. Kennerly's.  In the first place, it tends to discourage
#genuine inquiry into the subject at hand, by those who wish to increase
#their knowledge of that subject.  IOW, such knowledge is really something
#"arcane" which the "unwashed" have no right to know.

You mean, I take it, that <Mr. K. seems to think> that we feel superior
and wish to exclude the unwashed from our arcane knowledge -- not that
we actually feel that way! (Although, speaking of unwashed, we're
breaking temperature records here in the Boston area and I want to get
to the shower... But I digress.)

#         Furthermore, while
#I've seen some genuinely "cranky" posts here, can't these simply be ignored,
#or if troublesome, ban or moderate the person who makes them?  So many lists
#are "closed" and "special" as it is.  And the "academics" who run them
#clearly don't want the rest of us to trouble them, apparently.

Or perhaps they had so much trouble from people who didn't respect the
norms of the list that they felt they had to close their doors in order
to continue to accomplish their main purpose. Some ways in which
outsiders, who otherwise would have been welcome, could have been
troublesome:
 - by repeatedly pushing unsupportable theories; say,
creationism on a geology list, astrology on an astronomy list, or flat
earth on a geography list
 - by flaming: hurling insults and anger
 - by trolling: maliciously provoking angry responses by saying
controversial or objectionable things, and fanning the flames of
argument
 - by spamming: posting advertisements to the list, especially ads with
no relevant content
   And there are many other ways to be obnoxious.

#               This is fine
#in many cases, but language is a universal and learning about it should,
#IMHO, be open to any interested party.  IOW, my idea is that the "experts"
#are there to share their knowledge, not to hide it.  And since all of us
#speak some form of language, it seems to me that in some broad sense "we"
#are "experts" too.

As far as I can tell, we're in agreement about this list, up to this
point, where I draw back-- not from what you've said, but from some of
its implications. Language is a universal in that everyone has a
language, and in some broad sense everyone is therefore an expert on it.
Yes, and everyone has a body, but does that make everyone an M.D.?

People often *think* that language is obvious and transparent; after
all, it's "natural": we learned it not at our mother's knee, but before
we can remember doing any such thing. So everyone's an expert, in their
own minds. "Why do those foreigners bother saying all those funny things
like Brot and pano and khleb, when it's really *bread*?" Of course,
"bread" is no more or less "real" a name for it than any of the others.

Most non-members who post to this list aren't _that_ ignorant, but the
very accessibility of language makes it easy to formulate hypotheses
that are scientifically unsupportable. We call many of these "folk
etymologies", or (on this list) "etymythologies" in Larry Horn's
felicitious term, and they are a legitimate field of study... but they
are not to be confused with the scientific and data-driven study of
language, and someone who repeatedly insisted on his right to have such
a theory heard would be as unwelcome here as a skunk at a perfumers'
convention.

-- Mark A. Mandel