sources (re: PAP)

[Baker, John]

        Arnold, thank you for your detailed responses to my questions.  I urge you not to feel defensive about selecting an example that, in hindsight, turned out to be poorly chosen.  I believe that one advantage of a list like this is the ability to share information while views are still being formed, so that feedback from others can be taken into account in preparing more polished materials.  If the list were restricted to rigorously vetted posts, it would be far less valuable to both posters and readers.

        We all know, of course, that there are many posts that should never have been made in the first place, and I don't mean this to be taken as a defense of every ill-advised thought that may be shared with the world.  I think it's quite clear that that criticism cannot be made of Arnold's series of posts here.

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: Arnold Zwicky [mailto:zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU]
Sent: Friday, July 04, 2003 12:08 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: sources (re: PAP)



back to the PAP.  i'm grateful for the comments and criticisms i've
gotten.  somewhat defensively, i add that i see my ADS postings as a
kind of conversation, and they get relatively little editing (at most,
two or three cycles through, while my writing for publication
frequently goes through twenty to thirty).

i began the letter to andrea lunsford on june 3, and thought it would
be entertaining to use the two NYT editorials of that day for my
examples (though, goodness knows, i have plenty of others).  i was
then derailed by life events and finished the letter days later.  i
see now that the second example was not a good choice; it does have
two possible interpretations, and it's not especially important
which interpretation was intended.  (the interpretation i got on
first reading involved a violation of the PAP, so i just went with
it.  but it wasn't a particularly good example for my purposes.)