gentleman

[James Harbeck]

>It would be comforting were correspondents to allow me the benefit
>of the doubt in the detection of irony in language (and,
>occasionally, other matters, as well).  It would hardly be
>worthwhile to comment on ironic uses of language any more [sic] than
>it would be useful to conduct learned discourse on hyperbole,
>demanding, for instance, that dictionaries carry the meaning 'put;
>place' for throw when used in the context, "I'll just throw these
>glasses into the dishwasher."

I do apologize. In my late-evening scan of the email, I failed to
notice the irony in your missive to the museum. Of course, I'm sure
that you, probably even more than the rest of us here, know about
irony and other pragmatic effects. I merely raised it because I was
wondering about the actual relative frequency with which politeness
forms are used not ironically but with a forced formality coming from
social distancing for negative rather than positive reasons. I can
see I should simply have gone and dug up references on it and not
bothered anyone here with the question. But I was hoping to learn
further on the subject from those here who have more grounding in it
than I have. Clearly I should have broached the subject in a slightly
different style -- again the style of discourse used on other lists
seems not to be quite right for this one. My apologies.

WRT to inane dissertations: As far as I can tell, not only English
but all the humanities are riddled with them. I wish I could be
surprised that many in linguistics are also inane, but given the
number of deadweight tenure books coming out in the humanities and
social sciences serving no real value other than padding library
shelves and CVs, it would seem the dissertations are often just a
practice round of the same.

>   Considering the superficial annoyance brought by frequency of the
>often inane comments proffered, it is no small surprise that every
>week seems to bring the name of another person withdrawing from the
>game.

Some of them might also just be a bit too thin-skinned to take the
vigorous discourse that sometimes goes on.

>   The foregoing might well have been occasioned by an attack of
>dyspepsia, but stupidity and disrespect often have that effect on me.

Since I know you have a well-developed understanding of irony, I know
that the irony in the above statement (being upset by disrespect but
using a disrespectful term) was also intended.

I do find this list refreshing in that it's just about the only place
I can go where I'm not treated like the smartest person in the room.
But of course since I as yet lack graduate training in linguistics
(my PhD is in one of those humanities fields), I naturally expect
corrections and upbraidings here, and that's why I pipe up. It's a
good education!

Now I must go actually look and see what research there is on the
prevalence of non-ironic negative-toned uses of politeness forms.

James Harbeck.

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