Response to JL

Fri Nov 12 15:40:40 UTC 2010

My understanding is that Ron would like to see only posts of a certain
weightiness on issues known to be of interest to him.

I'm ready to meet him half way. As it happens, when I post a thread with a
sensational title like "Bad Girls Ride Again," I expect that members who
don't share my sociolinguistic and semantic interests will tolerantly delete
it, as I do unto them. My assumption is, however, that media usage is
significant to language history, not least because it's broadcast to
millions of people. And whether an item like "masculine" _emerita_ at an
academic website is a typo or a straw in the epicene wind is beyond my
ability to determine.

Though expressed in the nicest way, Ron's master list of people who "REALLY
have something valuable to say" is neither comprehensive, courteous, nor
collegial. Only a supreme act of will could have kept the poster's own name
off of it.

When, a while ago, Ron solicited my opinion of a paper he'd written on the
etymology of "crack cocaine," neither of us thought it was a "trivial"
question, though from certain perspectives nothing could be more so. I read
the paper with interest and commended Ron for his research and conclusions.
Am still waiting for a thank-you.

If bandwidth and expense are issues, I can hardly believe that the ADS so
advised Ron while overlooking the rest of us. He just doesn't post that
much.

Until I hear otherwise from an ADS officer, or from a consensus of posters
and lurkers, I see no reason for anybody to be discouraged from
sharing items of linguistic interest with colleagues and to discuss related
matters in this space.

I hope too that Paul will rejoin us.

JL

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 10:55 AM, Paul Frank <paulfrank at post.harvard.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Paul Frank <paulfrank at POST.HARVARD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Response to JL
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I hear you. As a former on-again and off-again lurker, as a
> non-linguist and non-lexicographer, and as recent culprit of posting
> quite a bit of inconsequential chitchat, I promise to quit wasting
> bandwidth and to going back to lurking and learning what I can from
> you all. I do think this is a valuable list with a number of very
> knowledgeable people. Thank you for allowing non-professionals to look
> on and listen in.
>
> Cheers,
> Paul
>
>
> On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 4:18 PM, Ronald Butters <ronbutters at aol.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I welcome JL's request (though I thought I'd covered his query in my
> posting duplicated below).
> >
> > At heart, I'm asking for politeness and consideration and a recognition
> that ADS-L is public space, sponsored by the American Dialect Society (which
> is, I assume, paying the bill to keep it running and, moreover to store
> FOREVER everything that is posted here). This is not a private chat group
> for posting whatever pops into one's head at the moment. In my view, the
> worst offenses include:
> >
> > 1. One-line responses that say little more than "I agree" or "Good joke,
> guy!"
> > 2. Postings that report simple typographical errors, common "misuses" of
> words, and errors in Latin grammar (people have been making errors informing
> Latin endings for centuries, which is why we have, e.g., Italian and
> French).
> > 3. Grandstanding postings that do little more than say, "woo-hoo, look at
> how clever I am, I know that [e.g.] 'otiose' does not refer to breakfast
> cereal."
> > 4. Reportings of commonplace dialect features and slang terms that one
> spots on television or radio (or are overheard in the local supermarket)
> that are well-documented in dictionaries and readily available scholarly
> literature.
> > 5. "Data" that is really only vague reminiscence.
> >
> > I realize that there are fuzzy edges to all of these areas of concern. I
> am not asking for List Police to step in, I am asking only for self-policing
> of a kind that is apparently pretty much nonexistent here. I also support
> ADS-L as ADS's outreach to the community at large, and I would hate to see
> this turn into a place where nonlinguists felt unwelcome. In fact, to my
> mind some of the worst offenders are people who actually know a good deal
> about linguistics, but who treat ADS-L as their own club for exchanging
> witticisms, reminiscing about their old army days, or simply showing off how
> much linguistic trivia they they know.
> >
> > If you are posting more than three or four times in a single day or more
> than seven times a week you are very likely hogging the space. Emulate
> people who REALLY have something valuable to say (e.g., David Bowie, Arnold
> Zwicky, Charles Doyle, Fred Shapiro, David Barnhart, Matt Gordon, Jesse
> Sheidlower, Ben Zimmer, Gerald Cohen, George Thompson, Steve Kleinedler, et
> al.). If you have several minor things to report, put them all in one
> posting.
> >
> > I have repeatedly suggested that simply putting a limit on the number of
> postings per day would go a long way towards solving the problem as I
> perceive it. This is what many similar list-servs do. I don't understand why
> the list-serv silently rejects individual postings that have an
> (unannounced) number of embeddings but will not reject excessive numbers of
> daily postings from individuals. Sometimes, the embeddings are useful in
> creating the context for understanding of the posting. On the other hand, to
> paraphrase Dr. Johnson said, imminent execution greatly concentrates the
> mind.
> > l
> > On Nov 11, 2010, at 8:25 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >
> >> It may well be that we on the list have little of real interest to share
> >> with the world or even with fellow specialists.
> >>
> >> This troubles me, though it's surely hard to compete with runaway
> deficits,
> >> emergent pandemics, near-earth asteroids, a Sarah Palin reality show,
> >> and mad bombers in Yemen reaching out to touch someone. Â Now those
> things
> >> are interesting!
> >>
> >> If Ron would tell us directly what sort of communications he'd prefer to
> >> see, I for one would try to oblige.
> >>
> >> JL
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 7:54 PM, Sam Clements <SClements at neo.rr.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> >>> -----------------------
> >>> Sender: Â  Â  Â  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> >>> Poster: Â  Â  Â  Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM>
> >>> Subject: Â  Â  Â Re: RE "Shoot beaver"?
> >>>
> >>>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>> From: "Ronald Butters" <ronbutters at AOL.COM>
> >>>
> >>>> Aboout 95% of what gets posted here is just rambling anecdote or
> comment
> >>>> on somebody or other's typographical error or grammatical or lexical
> >>>> "mistake," or some regional or social dialectal feature that could be
> >>>> found in a dictionary. Or worse, just somebody saying something like,
> "I
> >>>> agree" or "Thanks for that" or "How clever I am, I studied Latin 50
> years
> >>>> ago." I spend a considerable part of each day just deleting messages
> >>>> without opening them: after you have read one entry in a thread, it is
> >>>> gnerallyu pretty clear that the rest is not worth bothering with.
> >>>>
> >>>> I guess this just means that I need to go the way of Roger Shuy,
> Dennis
> >>>> Preston, etc., and sign off from the list. The occasional interesting
> >>> item
> >>>> is increasingly buried in a sea of trivial anecdote. A lot of people
> seem
> >>>> to find the list as it has become is really what they want to do in
> their
> >>>> retirement or Â in their cups or whatever. Assuming that my dues in
> the
> >>>> American Dialect Society are not being horribly strained by the cost
> of
> >>>> recording all this junk for posterity in the University of Georgia's
> >>>> computer archive, I should just slink away in silence.
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> But, you won't, just as you didn't when your comments drove away
> posters
> >>> such as Barry Popik. Â Not that Barry wasn't carrying things to
> extremes,
>  >>> but
> >>> your comments at that time certainly influenced his postings as well as
> >>> mine.
> >>>
> >>> Sorry to be such a burden.
> >>>
> >>> Sam Clements
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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