I’ve noticed the same thing, DH. It’s annoying when someone jumps in with some minor quibble or pointless clarification, usually one you were perfectly aware of, but thought irrelevant to the discussion. Or something so rare that it doesn’t make any difference.
Instead of looking at it as writing a legal document, though, think of it as writing one of those “Endless Quests/Choose Your Own Adventure” books. It’ll take just as long, but it’ll be more fun.
“…If you think I’m ignoring cases in Belgium, skip to line 43 below
…If you believe these numbers should be based on metric, rather than “English” units, skip to line 143 below
…If you object that this is too harsh a solution, go to subsection “Kiddie” staring on line 1054.”
One morning after work, a friend and I were playing Monopoly at the kitchen table. We were joking around about something, I forget what, but as I was leaving the room to get us more coffee, she yelled, “Order in the court!!”
From the kitchen I called out, “We are seeking punitive damages!”
Long pause. Confused voice… "Did you say ‘Tuna fish sandwiches’? "
I do hope y’all realize it, but if this battle of wits continues, this thread may be on its way to The truly great threads in SDMB history which has just been bumped for at least the tenth time in its six year history, including this week.
I tried to find a version online to quote, and it must be either too old or too silly, but the gist is this farmer needs to borrow a neighbor’s wheelbarrow for some chore and as he’s walking the three miles to the friend’s house, he starts running through all the side stories and snags the neighbor may throw up as to why the “borrow” may turn into a “debt” or worse.
So after getting all sweaty and bedraggled with the trip, he utters said line.
It’s great if you make it sort of a shaggy dog thing…
Yes, I’ve felt the same thing - needing to put in examples, clarifications, exceptions, etc. so that people are able to see the meaning of my question rather than find answers that could maybe be argued to be relevant by OCPD attorney with a linguistics PhD.
There’s also what I’ve come to know as the “grad school curse” mindset, i.e. the tendency to start out with a humungous background information section “for the sake of clarity and completeness” and to end with lots of examples and/or ideas on how the concept could be expanded.
*Please note that statements, even though they appear to be written in an unqualified manner, should be interpreted to refer to substantial, material, or important expressions of their underlying words, rather than examples that you made up one day that arguably fit but aren’t relevant to the OP. It also excludes situations that are in violation of applicable law, are very well known to the common person, or were already mentioned in the OP. When I use the term “you”, I mean the common and ordinary meaning of “you”, disregarding the fact that Johnson (1995) documented the existence of a tribe in rural Papua New Guinea whose culture requires that persons who are not eligible for membership in the tribe nor already members must be addressed using third party pronouns unless the speaker has obtained a blue speaker’s permit from their clan chief and that use of the term “you” in violation of this provision are considered to imply that the speaker believes that the addressed person has committed treason or an applicable felony. The differences among a “statement of fact”, “assertion of fact”, “documentable finding of fact”, and an “observation of reality” do not directly impact my question - I am interested in anything that is likely true according to some serious theory. I am aware that Madagascarian agricultural tax law defines a whale as a type of fish - please ignore this and concentrate on finding creatures that most people would consider to be a fish.
