Dyslexia and English Orthography was "surprise"

[Tom Zurinskas]

Note there is no apology to me by MAM.  The apology is just to make him look better after his scurrilous post.  Didn't work.  He shames us all.  The history of saved posts in this forum is revelatory.

Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
see truespel.com



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> Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:07:02 -0500
> From: thnidu at GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Re: Dyslexia and English Orthography was "surprise"
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Mark Mandel
> Subject: Re: Dyslexia and English Orthography was "surprise"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Yes, I was over the top, I admit it, and I regretted that posting
> shortly after I sent it.
>
> However, if you are at all familiar with the history of Mr.
> Zurinskas's involvement with this list, you should also be aware that
>
> 1. From the very beginning of his posting, many members of this list
> (I among them, though far from the most knowledgeable) tried honestly
> and earnestly to answer his questions and to correct his
> misunderstandings and the gaps in his knowledge.
>
> 2. Within a few months, his refusal to accept or acknowledge the
> expertise available to him here and his insistence on the superiority
> of his own intuition became clear to many of us.
>
> 3. I realized his attitude while many of our other members were, with
> increasing frustration, banging their heads against the brick wall of
> his obstinacy. For a while I would point this out, while still being
> unable to keep myself from being drawn into the disputes. Some members
> thanked me, off-list or on.
>
> 4. Eventually I took the rather drastic* steps of
> - switching my subscription from digest to individual emails, and
> - from my office to my personal email account
> - so that I could have anything sent by him deleted without having
> to read it or even see it.
>
> * I have been using the Internet regularly since, I think, the
> mid-seventies. Mr. Zurinskas became only the second or third person I
> have ever killfiled in all that time.
>
> 5. The latest chapter of this foofaraw seems to have brought the man's
> true attitude toward scholarship to everyone's full awareness. But Tom
> Zurinskas, by wasting our time and effort and starting fires, has
> caused much, much more damage to this list and to the cause of
> "advancing the interest in and study of the English language as spoken
> in North America" than my one outburst ever could do.
>
> I regret the word that I used. I neither regret nor withdraw my
> descriptions of the man as ignorant and obstinate.
>
> Mark Mandel
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 10:33 AM, Bill Palmer wrote:
>>
>> I'm curious to know how an obscene ad hominem attack such as this post
>> carries could possibly construed by anyone as advancing the interest in and
>> study of the English language as spoken in North America.
>>
>> I'm reminded of Henry Kissisnger's remark that professorial egos within the
>> humanities are so large, because the consequences are so small.
>>
>> Bill Palmer
>
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