**lissener **- I have no dog in this hunt, but would appreciate if you would comment on Manda JO’s post in this thread - her thoughts on people’s tastes, positioning oneself as an expert and the implications of that on discussions seems pretty solid…anything you might take away from that observation about your posting style?
By the gills?
Neither my partner nor I are famous people and hold rather ordinary jobs but we have met our share of celebrities. If those people came up in conversation, I might add our passing relationship but I’m not a “star fucker” (that’s not meant to imply anyone, including the pittee, is). Some activities just happen to give the chance to meet these folks. We visited a friend of my SO’s last year and she’s a band promoter and we got backstage tickets to the Sasquatch Festival. We hung out and watched the music back there, played Guitar Hero, ate lots of free snacks, and met some “stars”. The funny thing was, some knew our relationship with my SO’s friend and were trying to suck up to us to get her to manage their band.
As cool as that was, and yeah, I thought that was pretty neat, it’s not as great as my friend who works at Comcast and was able to hook me up with a great deal. Or even better is our friend who owns a construction company and had some downtime and instead of having his laborers sit idly by for the next project, he’s sent them over to our house and we now have a wood floor in the basement and a new bathroom going in next week with the materials being our only out of pocket expense. It’s much better than having had dinner with XXXX XXXXXXX XXXXXXXX.
So yeah, I could drop some names, and I’m sure I have in the past when relevent. But I don’t see anyone doing it here to get the upperhand in a conversation. So what’s the big deal?
It’s not a debate. As opposed to the U.S. (and my own country Sweden), there’s an official authority:
The RAE has an excellent online dictionary. Remember, this is not only descriptive, the RAE has the final word (no pun intended) when it comes to matters about the Spanish language. Searching castellano gives 15 possible meanings and it’s the fourth that is of interest:
This translates as
- m.* Spanish language, especially when one wants to make a distinction with respect to other languages also used officially in Spain.
This is not a literal translation. *Introducir *is of course introduce, put forward, but using introduce seems a bit awkward. *Habladas *would normally be translated as spoken. And *propias *would normally be translated as proper. Again, saying ‘with respect to other proper langauges spoken in Spain’ loses the flavor of the meaning.
The translation is to the best of my abilty and Spanish is my fifth language (though I lost German and French due to never using them after HS)
*Indicating masculine and therefore a noun.
(bolding mine)
No shit.
I’d rather not dig up that joke again, assuming I could even find it. Ancient history as far as I’m concerned.
Charlie Tan, you are right that this is not a debate. And I’m not treating it like one. I’m searching for the proper way to explain language facts in a way that is not confusing.
lissener, I see now you were referring to your cites in just that one post (#50 in the post thread), so I can try to go through them. That’s a lot easier than going through all the cites in two threads. First, though, I want to point out post 72 of the pit thread:
I need to point out that your statement here and Excalibre’s statement are not equivalent.
Excalibre points out one correct piece of information: some Spanish professors would seem to regard “Castilian” as a better translation of the word in the constitution. This is true. But these professors do not have some monopoly on “official” words as used in English. Their use of “Castilian” does not mean that Castilian is best translation, even in some narrow pedantic sense. All that this means is that that “Castilian” is one possible official translation. It is not the only possible official translation, and there is no reason to believe that it is officially better just because some professors like it better.
With that said, let me try to go through the cites in post 50:
This link utilizes the hyper-literal translation of Castellano as Castilian. This means that for the purposes of this particular translator, the literal meaning is used to get a point across in English.
This does not automatically mean, however, that Castilian is the more “official” translation. In this particular context, it’s used to draw a distinction. In another context, though, “Spanish” would be just as official. The pedantic use of Castilian here does not deprecate the official use of Spanish in another translation of the constitution. Both words can be used as a correct official translation.
This link also utilizes the hyper-literal translation of Castellano as Castilian.
The phrasing is interesting (“known around the world as ‘Spanish’”), but I could phrase it a different way and be just as officially correct: “Spanish: Sometimes referred to as ‘Castilian’ from the use of Castellano in the Spanish Constitution, this is the official language of the country as it is stipulated in Article 3 of the constitution.” The use of one word in some contexts does not in any way deprecate the use of the other word in other contexts, even when translating the very same document.
This link also utilizes the hyper-literal translation of Castellano as Castilian. This does not mean it’s the only official translation, etc. etc. etc.
I could continue, but it would go on in a similar vein. You have evidence that “Castilian” is often used in translations of the constitution. Hell, it might even be the more popular choice when translating the constitution. But that word Castellano is referring to a specific [Language at Issue]. This [Language at Issue] is spoken by some 400 million people. And in English, we can officially, correct, technically, precisely, pedantically use “Spanish” as our signifier of this [Language at Issue], and in doing so, we would not be less correct in any way, shape, or form. It’s as simple as that.
You might if you knew “Jerry”.
Jerry was an older guy who was in my same program in grad school. For some unspecified period in the distant past he was the road manager for Canned Heat. I know this because he mentioned it A LOT. You wouldn’t think Canned Heat would come up that often in conversation, but somehow it did when Jerry was around. He didn’t have amusing stories about his experiences in the heady world of rock and roll or anything, he’d just say that he had in fact been on the road with “The Heat”.
I don’t think his frequent dropping of their name could have been any more annoying if Jerry’d had no greater connection to the band than “I met Canned Heat once when they came into the store”, but it definitely would have been more pathetic.
*I don’t see these two things as being mutually exclusive.
*I guess I do not find the simple fact that another person has briefly encountered a celebrity to be especially entertaining. It’s not like spotting a yeti. A story about meeting a celebrity can be entertaining, but that really depends on the story.
True story: I once had my photo taken with George Takei. True, but not much of a story, is it? My brief encounter with “Mr. Sulu” was in and of itself unremarkable, and if I were in the habit of bringing it up like this then people might understandably be annoyed. The only interesting thing about this minor incident is that I’ve never seen the photo in question because my camera was stolen a few days later.
The much longer tale of the theft, how everything but my camera was recovered, and how the thief was eventually captured and brought to justice is IMHO fairly entertaining, and I do find it amusing to introduce it as a “tale of crime and intrigue, featuring a cameo appearance by a member of the cast of Star Trek.” But it would be nearly as good a story even without Takei.
*A thread called something like “Have you ever met a famous person?” would be one of the “few discussions” I alluded to in which telling a minor anecdote about a brief encounter with a celebrity (“Famous Author X signed my book!”) would be quite appropriate.
I’ve never consider it a combo for “losers” just that most art/music careers end up as part time due to the rarity of work/decent money in the biz. Money in art is kinda like playing the lottery, once in a while someone really takes off…most…Starbucks, video stores, fast food, etc.
Which is the only point I’ve been trying to make: that Colibri was overstepping to call me flat out “wrong,” rather than putting forth a different, though valid, interpretation. Hyper literal or not, it’s not black-and-white “wrong.” Which Colibri insisted upon, to the point where he accused me of simply refusing to admit I was wrong, and arguing, disingenuously, only to cover my own ass. Let ALONE pit me with a ferocity I’d expect from someone who’d raped his grandmother. You’ve seen my cites, you’ve seen why my decision to agree with the writer of the Wiki article, after doing my own followup research, is at worst open to debate; but in no way wrong. I mean seriously, I contact the heads of the Spanish departments of two major universities, who agree with it too; are they worthy of Colibri’s vitriol? Google found 122 instances of the phrase from the constitution translated as “Castillian,” and zero as “Spanish.” 122 to zero. How “wrong” is that? Pittably wrong?
Yes, I wondered if I should respond to the posters who’ve offered me some support, but I guess I didn’t want to embarrass them, or appear to be responding to them simply to get their words on the record again; it seemed the more “honorable” thing to do, the more modest thing, to let them speak for themselves rather than go, “See? What he said!” But I did notice and do appreciate the supportive posts in this thread.
But I think MandaJo has a valid point. See (and here I’m gonna open myself up for another pitting, but I might as well get it out of the way), when I’m writing about a movie, or whatever, of course it always occurs to me to wonder, “Should I put this delicately? Should I preemptively apologize to anyone who likes this movie more than I do, in case I hurt their feelings?” Invariably, I decide (yeah, I never learn) that to do so would be patronizing. That it would show more respect for the people who might read what I write to speak to them like adults, and not presume to treat them like children. They’ll know that what I’m stating is an opinion, and that I take it as a given that as such it’s open to reinterpretation and discussion. Almost always, though, there’s at least one person who takes personal offense in the fact that we don’t both love the same movies. I must be retarded, because it surprises me every single time.
As far as taking something from MandaJo’s post in:re my posting style, I think she’s right, but I still think it would be patronizing to change my posting style; I really don’t think I’m gonna try to be all obsequious and apologetic when discussing a movie about which I have something critical to say, unless I’m speaking to the actual creator of the work.
I was also thinking about the old pit thread, dredged up again upthread, in which I called HD-Sports fans retarded. It occurred to me that if I were out drinking with friends, we were say eight or ten people sitting around a table drinking pitchers and eating bar food, and the talk turned to HD-Sports, and I chortled and said “Anyone who considers ‘sports on HDTV’ as anything other than an oxymoronic ludicrosity is retarded. You are all retarded”–everyone would have laughed, told me to shut up, and thrown a coaster at my head or something. While we all laughed.
Now, again, tone deaf: there’s no way to read my “chortling” tone in that post, and it comes off–I readily admit–as simple, cruel insult. Again, real-life tone versus internet tone, is something I’m not good at. People who know me will tell you (have in fact told you) that I have a pretty sardonic sense of humor, and I don’t always know when to keep it to myself. I’m something of an amateur (and obnoxious) insult comic. The other day at work, someone asked me if I liked “Across the Universe.” I said, no, it didn’t work for me. But my coworker Erin liked it. The customer was a regular; a funny guy; so I added–“But Erin bumps into things.” He laughed, Erin laughed, hahaha. But that kind of insult, in dry internet text, would sound like a raw insult. I get that, but I don’t always necessarily get it in the heat of the typing; I always seem to assume that my wit is so terribly terribly sharp that the humor MUST show through, and my “quip” will be taken as intended. Anyway, that’s by way of admitting my own tonedeafness.
lissener, I know you aren’t the type of guy to use the smilies, but really, they can be your friends. Not being a person who hangs out in CS an awful lot, I can’t speak to your tonedeafness personally, but based on this post, I think you might want to consider it. What you wrote here is the reason I personally value their existence, and think a little judicious use of them can help folks avoid a lot of misunderstandings.
Yes, I’ve heard that suggestion before. My problem is I’m too impressed with myself as a writer to think I need such a crutch (said sardonically, fyi), but obviously that’s not realistic. I’ll give it further ponderation.
Honourable though your intentions are, having just waded through that linked thread I have to say that I think your fingers will be worn to the bone before lissener acknowledges that he might just, almost imperceptibly, have been wrong.
Good luck though.
Good, because if you have that much trouble with tone, you are not as brilliant a writer as you think you are. 
See how the smiley can help?
But the things you wrote in the GQ thread were wrong. As phrased, they were not correct. The overwhelming majority of Colibri’s corrections were factually based. There were basically two statements that you confused again and again:
Statement Number One: The official language of Spain can technically be called “Castilian”.
This is true, of course. And it’s also true that in the exact same semantic sense, the official language of Spain can technically be called “Spanish”. Spanish is generally the more precise of the two terms.
Statement Number Two: “Castilian” is slightly better than “Spanish” in an obscure semantic technical precise pedantic official way.
This is false.
Colibri is on record for denying true statement #1, as shown by his pit OP. You were bewildered by this denial, and this is to a certain extent understandable. You had plenty of evidence that Castellano in the constitution is fairly regularly translated as “Castilian”, and a constitutional translation is about as official as it gets. There is nothing technically wrong with this, and you were right about that.
But you didn’t say that. Not really. Again and again, the plain meaning of your words was not to defend true statement #1. Rather, you repeatedly asserted the false #2. You explicitly asserted this false statement in posts 26, 28, 35, 41, and 49 in the GQ thread. You were incorrect every single time that you did so. Colibri was correct every single time that he corrected this error.
Yes, there was a nugget of truth hidden in there (the true #1), but I’m not sure how anyone would be expected to have seen that true point under all of the misinformation, especially when you were claiming things like: “Depending on the context, ‘Spanish’ is open to a degree of ambiguity,” (post 49) and “‘Castilian is the official language of Spain’ is 100% accurate. ‘Spanish is the official language of Spain’ is somewhat less so, depending on context,” (post 41). Both statements about the lack of precision in the word “Spanish” were utterly and completely false, since “Spanish” was a noun in both contexts. Note, too, that in the second quote, you manage to assert both true statement #1 and false statement #2 side-by-side; even when you said something right, you immediately followed it with something wrong.
Which brings me to tone.
Colibri knows Spanish fluently. He recognized your many, many false statements for what they were. He engaged your false statements and refuted them. He neglected to see your underlying point, but since your underlying point was mis-stated at least five different times, minimum, on the first page of that thread (not to mention the numerous other false statements that I documented above in this thread), it is not at all surprising or unreasonable that he was upset with you.
He was justifiably upset with you. No question at all about that.
There was a valid underlying point that you wanted to make, but you didn’t have a firm enough handle on that point to phrase it without repeatedly slipping into obvious errors. They expected apologies for those numerous mistakes, and you didn’t give them because you were doggedly holding on to one single interesting piece of information that you couldn’t quite express at the time. Eventually, they gave up on you.
And this is entirely understandable. I was an original spectator for that thread and watched the whole thing unfold and I didn’t have a damn clue at the time what you were trying to say. It was only through a serious of random coincidences that I returned to it several times later on and started to piece together an explanation for your frenzied determination.
And in my honest opinion, that explanation still doesn’t do your behavior two years ago any credit. Even with Colibri’s error in the pit thread OP, it was a well deserved pitting. You were too determined to make your point to realize how terribly you’d clouded the issue the previous five times you’d tried to make your point. After all, your cites didn’t support the false statements that you constantly repeated - your cites simply supported true statement #1 that was hidden far underneath.
There was just no way for anyone else to know that. I had to read those threads three times, months apart, to finally get an idea of what you were trying to say.
All they saw was a guy who made an obvious factual mistake every single damn he posted, and yet who was obstinately clinging to a point that he couldn’t explain. It’s no wonder at all to me that you got the negative reactions. I shared that reaction myself for a long time. And even having tried to understand your point, as I hope I’ve demonstrated here, I still think that your behavior back then was out-of-line.
It’s not just the knuckledraggers who get angry at you. There are a lot of intelligent posters who have more than reasonable criticisms.
I think you all are forgetting one thing: lissener is a jerk. I don’t care what his job is or his sexuality or his views on movies, the guy is a jerk. That’s painfully obvious to anyone who’s been around for more than a year or two.
And yet, for stating this obvious fact using a few recent threads as examples, I get jumped on because apparently every Doper is hobnobbing with celebrities nightly.
Yes, because that’s exactly what happened. Christ, what a baby. Is Justin-wustin not happy-wappy until everyone agrees with him about mean ol Lissener?
Maybe the guy is a jerk from word go, I have no idea. What you’re complaining about? Stupid. Some people agreed with you, some people think he’s a jerk and this is meaningless, some people like him. A few more people took your OP to West Hell about some other pitting of him.
Maybe he’s driven you nutso and this is just the straw that broke the camel’s back. Getting your Underroos in a bunch because he’s met a few “celebrities” and a whole lot of people that few people would recognize is bad enough. Whining that you got jumped on when you just got a few people who disagreed (like in EVERY pit thread) makes you seem like a crybaby.
You know what, fuck you. This place has a real problem with asshole worship and it’s one of the reasons why The Pit isn’t as fun as it used to be.
Today I might be lame, but lissener will always be an asshole.