> 2008-08-22
>
>> With respect to your claims regarding your writing being better than the
>> average english professor or journalist, I have to say your sadly
>> mistaken. Your expressive style actually confuses and detracts from your
>> arguements. You seem to believe your style is a new radical form of
>> expression and those that criticise it are just morons who don't
>> appreciate your great talent. Such an arguement may have merit in a work
>> of fiction in which you are trying to push the boundries. However, it
>> simply detracts from what your trying to express when your dealing with
>> issues of fact or arguements regarding issues of technology, sociology,
>> philosophy or belief. If you honestly want to address such issues, you
>> need to express them in a clear concise manner that presents your
>> arguments without the distractions of unfamiliar style.
>
> You said it right. The question is, if i want to.
My mistake. I took your other claims of wanting to educate, teach and
open the eyes of 'tech geekers' as genuine. I didn't realise you were
deliberately trying to be annoying and offensive.
>
>> I persoanlly
>> always asumed your poor grammer was due to english not being your native
>> tongue. If this is not the case, then I'd just have to assume you were a
>> student who was above average at math, but below average in
>> english.
>
> Haha.
>
> My newsgroup writings are particularly crafted to entice the tech
> geeking morons. If the tech geekers thought that i'm new to english
> thus my bad writing, that's exactly what i want them to think. Due to
> my persistence and osmosis, they eventually realized that they are the
> victim of my advanced craft, and bang, they become my fan.
>
> This is somewhat like orgasm. Those with prolonged foreplay are the
> spectacular ones. So, i set out to tease and trap the morons. They
> think they got a idiot at hand. But i persist. They find my writings
> amiss yet cant resist. Lil' by lil', they sip and fight it. After a
> while, they come to a full realization that they are the underskilled
> ones, and that's when, they appreciate me more than if i just come out
> straight.
Reasonable rationalisation, but I think your deluding yourself.
>
>> This is not uncommon. Many students find the more precise
>> nature of maths easier to grasp than the less precise rules of english
>> grammer (noting that english is often cited as the most difficult
>> language to learn because of its inconsistent and complex grammatical
>> structure).
>
> Being someone with linguistic knowledge far beyond most tech geekers
> (i'd say my linguistic knowledge is, better than the average who has a
> degree in linguistics), i'd say that the notion of English being the
> most difficult language is largely the figment of the wasp.
Actually, that criticism of english usually comes form those whose
native tongue is not english, especially when they come from culture
where the language has a more consistent grammar.
>
>> If your aim is to communicate and educate, then yu need to
>> write in a style that makes your points clear.
>
> actually, the problem is just whether i want to eliminate the brain
> washing and insult elements when conversing with tech geeking morons
> and fuckfaces.
>
> logical clarity and communicative power is actually the salient
> feature of my writing skill.
>
Not in the way you demonstrate it in these groups.
> most of my post in the past month or 2, with my adaption to a chat
> style to emulate and appease the tech geekers, are not carefully
> written. My posts in the past decade, which i post at a intentionally
> limited rate about 1 or 2 messages per week, are usually carefully
> written, long, and each took 1 to 6 hours. (for detail, see
>
http://xahlee.org/Netiquette_dir/why_cant_you_be_normal.html ) But
> even in these posts, typically there are typos, spelling errors, and
> many unintended grammatical errors, and some phrasing and structure
> that could have been better. These type of errors gets fixed when i
> later edit and put them to my website.
>
> So, for example, my lisp criticism about its irregular syntax and cons
> business, originally is just a post here as a side effect of aswering
> a lisper's question about processing trees. Now, i've edited it
> somewhat so it's on my website for more general public consumption:
>
On the whole, its not the spelling, typos or even small grammatical
errors that make it difficult to understand your arguments. Your
phrasing is often poorly structured and actually makes it quite
difficult to determine exactly what your arguement is. this causes
confusion, which you obviously enjoy. However, it doesn't contribute to
your stated goal of teaching and educating. However, from this post, I
realise this isn't really what you want to achieve. It seems your more
interested in your own notoriety and ego stroking. Its what the English
would call 'being a wanker'. I'm sure you will like that label and all
credit to you if thats what you want. Personally, I find it difficult to
understand how the opinions of lots of faceless usernet users is of any
value. As the cartoon said, on the internet, nobody knows your a dog.
>
> It still contains the fuck words. But say, if one day i decide to
> publish my writings in a book, or say, submit to Calculus Esoterica
> quarterly, then these writings serve as a draft.
>
Others may disagree, but the 'fuck words' are not anything I have an
issue with. they are just words and in fact, I find it amusing we use a
word as an insult that represents something we all (or most of us) like
to do as often as possible.
>
> The writing quality of the articles linked directly in that page, are
> what i consider perfect technical writing. Though, they still exhibit
> full idiosyncracy of me. For example, you will still see things like
> the use of “i” for “I”, starting a sentence with a conjunction, lack
> of conjunction at the penultimate position of a sequence, lack of “an”
> form, “programing” instead of the more common orthography
> “programming”, no use of period for abbreviations or middle names, use
> of nested parens ... and quite a few others. Lol. It's that way
> partly because i want to sting and elicit the grammarian and pundit
> morons out there, and partly serve as education in general public (the
> mechanism is by raising awareness (for example, if some grammar
> sensitive moron hit me in some rude way in public, then i'll reply and
> explain with a carefully crafted writing. Soon, the discussion will
> snowball into a public controversy. Eventually, the world's top
> experts in writing, linguistics, literature, comes out, and the
> majority are likely to be on my side. This is when, the educational
> purpose embedded in my “awkward” english takes effect, in fact carries
> the seed of revolution. (as a example, did you notice how i mentioned
> the origin of the word “OK” in gnu.emacs.help? The tech geekers
> started to discuss about it and learn among themselfs, meanwhile,
> reinforced my argument that the situation of the term “buffer” in
> emacs isn't what they thought is.)).).
While I agree there are some people who are far too up tight regarding
grammar and can come across as grammar nazis, there is a point to having
structure - to enable clear expression of thoughts, ideas and points of
arguement in a way that is less likely to be misinterpreted due to
different understanding of what the text means and instead allow discussion,
arguement and debate over the content. From what you write, I can see
what your aim is, but I think your trying too hard or trying to be too
clever. However, it all probably depends on what your real motives
are. I had assumed you were more genuine and that was my mistake.
>
> Written in 1997. That's before i have become a troll with my fully
> developed bag of idiosyncracies. It is linked by math professors and
> math institutions around the world, btw. (just ask, i'll show you the
> hundreds of urls that link to it)
>
I don't understand why you feel its an achievement to be a troll. There
is little skill in achieving such a badge - in fact, many achieve it
without wanting to or even trying.
> Btw, this year, i have replaced all proper use of “an” to all just “a”
> on that site, in accordance of my kookiness that has developed in my
> late recent life. If you want to see the “an” form, you can use
>
archive.org . I haven't become nutty enough to replace all “I” by “i”
> in that work. Though it's on my mind.
>
>> Your claim that you are a
>> genius with a new style of expression is just a poor excuse for not
>> having a good grasp of english grammer and an inability to honestly edit
>> yourself to assist the reader rather than stroke your own ego.
>
> when it comes to newsgroup, stroke my own ego takes priority than
> education.
so it would seem. Unfortunate perhaps. At least your intentions are now
clear and others may now have more insight into how to respond.
>
> Possibly i'll write a reply to the other part of your message
> concerning the lisp criticism.
>
I wouldn't bother. As I stated before, I believed you were genuine in
your claims to want to enducate and teach. I'm not interested in helping
you stroke your ego or feed your fantasies regarding being some sort of
usernet 'celebrity'. I will often give people the benefit of the doubt,
which may mean I'm more naive than I should be, but I now know
better. Thanks for at least coming clean and making your true motives
clear.
Tim
--
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au
