JM introduced a notional person, who is an Iraq war supporter. My response was descriptive of that notional person. It was neither a personal insult to John Mace or any other person, nor was it an ad hominem argument. Look at this post again for confirmation.
Summary: It’s a about “that person.” It’s not about an individual poster.
This is the case and the grammer, despite the misunderstanding expressed by John Mace in this post, which frankly had me rather puzzled until I realized he had mistaken the notional person for himself.
Oh, Puhleeez. Notice the subject of the sentence containing the word “calculus”. The subject is “I”. “I” as in me. Hence the assumption you were referring to me, as everyone else in the thread also assumed. So, to correct your error, you do what? Apologize? No, you open a Pit thread.
The warning stands. You directly quoted another poster on this board using the word “calculus”; you say “calculus is such a big word to use for an Iraq war supporter” (which is already pushing it at the very least); then you follow up with “Fools, blackguards and reprobates will remain so, the mission of this board notwithstanding” which definitely puts it over the top. Not even a borderline case, really.
Also, if it’s possible to construe a set of words in some extremely contrived and unnatural way such that they don’t technically insult another poster, but (sans lengthy explanation of the supposedly complex grammar) the most obvious interpretation which will be taken by anyone else reading the post is that you just insulted the other poster, I’m going with the reading everyone else will be giving your post.
This is a message board, not a patent infringement lawsuit; the purpose of the rules is to maintain a little civility and decorum so that people can have political arguments without them turning into mindless flame wars or screaming trainwrecks, not to play “Gotcha!” with sentence structure or pronoun antecedents.
So, let me get this straight; the OP is claiming a significant distinction exists between these statements:
A: “You’re a child-raper.”
B: “Everyone who feels the way you do on this issue is a child-raper.”
Hmmm… I expect the attempted explanation of the distinction will be entertaining, if nothing else. It may be along the lines of:
…which I gather means the OP thinks it would be okay to call someone a evil child-raper, but not a stupid child-raper, though there is a correlation between evil and stupid, so we shouldn’t be surprised, except if someone takes offense, which would be shockingly unexpected and totally unintended.
The warning was deserved. The eventual banning will be, too.
No, I’m sorry but you are plainly mistaken in ordinary functional grammer. This it how it goes:
1: - There is no doubt that the subject of John Mace’s sentence was “someone [who] supported the Iraq war.”
2: - John Mace then raises the ‘calculus’ that person would use
3: - Indicating by “I” that he and others had pointed this out previously.
He and you are not now in a position to claim that this “I” made him the subject, particularly as he expressly pointed out he was not an Iraq war supporter in the thread. Nor did I assume he was an Iraq war supporter in drafting the post.
4: I argued that someone who supported the Iraq war did not merit their thinking process being called ‘calculus’.
So do we agree you are wrong if Captain Amazing took my post to refer to Iraq war supporters generally, rather than John Mace personally:
It is not me that has contrived the grammar unnaturally. JM just misread the post.
I quite agree. Sadly, it is you that has played Gotcha!
I made a legitimate and arguable point which I maintain by the way. John Mace found an insult in it, that in the plain light of day isn’t there. That’s a long way from ‘Direct Personal Insult.’
If you are going to have a rule about ‘questioning the morals of people who advance particular positions’ say so. So I’m touchy about proper grammar, Ok.
But look, I’m fair, I can cool the general tone, there was heat there which seems to me what it’s really about.
Here try this:
“To call an Iraq war supporter’s thinking calculus, is more dignity than it merits.”
How’s that?
To the co-religionist detractors: Contact DSeid, he has worked out the relevant facts. Not at liberty to say more.
It’s a bad analogy MEB. It fails at “I support.” Contrast John Mace’s post, where there is no mention of what he supports. A better analogy is:
[quote=MEBuckner plus]
Originally posted by Hypothetical Poster
Quote:
Originally Posted by Other Hypothetical Poster
There is support the President’s initiative for a War on Bad Grammer. Pro-Grammarists believe in careful composition of their thoughts without adequate care for the casual reader.
My what cretins. Only credulous fools could support anything as stupid as a “War on Bad Grammar.”
See, the point is, we all know you’re actually talking about John Mace. Fancy grammar tricks don’t fool anyone for a second. That was a direct, pointed insult at another poster, and there’s no way you’re stupid enough to not recognize that. Thankfully, you are stupid enough to think anyone would actually fall for your transparent semantic shenanigans. So we get a highly amusing pit thread that will, if we’re very lucky, end in a banning.
Are you really so stupid as to think that casting Pit worthy insults at more people in a GD thread rather than fewer makes it okay? Eh, hopefully you are that stupid. We’ll be rid of you that much sooner.