A Message from Paul F. Wood

I'm enormously pleased to tell you that I have received a message from Paul
F. Wood, which he has asked me to post for him here.

Oh my god, does that mean it's going to start all over again!!!???

Will we once again hear the stupid claim that Paul does not exist? That I
have merely invented him as a phoney identity for projecting my own views?

Somehow I don't think that will happen this time around. Though with the
insular and ignorant crew that still hangs around here, you never know.

The original argument the first time around was stupid enough. From Horsey
Rossy of course (who else?), it went:

> It did seem rather suspicious how Paul popped up at the same time as Alex,
> more or
> less echoed his line, and then there was that funny business about Paul
> being "unable to
> post", so that his communications were forwarded to us by Alex.

Here we see precisely how insular and provincial Horsey Rossy and all his
ilk truly are. The so-called "funny business" about Paul being "unable to
post."

Here in a nutshell we have the perfect proof that Horsey Rossy & some others
here have lived, and continue to live today, in a dream world. They
actually imagine that accessing the Internet and making one's way to the
USENET Newsgroups is as easy for all others as it has been through the
decades for themselves. Because they have been spoiled and cosseted by the
tech departments of their universities and had their access to these zones
facilitated by those institutions.

If they had been required to do it on their own, they could never have
managed it. If you want to know how stupid and uninformed the average
professor is about computers, just talk to the head of the tech maintenance
department at any university. I guarantee, you will get more than an
earful. I have seen these moguls fall on their copious hindquarters when
asked to do anything more complex with a computer than simply pressing the
keys on its keyboard.

Things were even harder fifteen years ago when I had no choice but to master
some relatively arcane UNIX routines to find my way to this group. But even
then the academic wizards were spared these steps and had the USENET
interface handed to them on a tech-exempted cushion.

What's more, accessing the newsgroups from Europe six years ago was even
harder than in the US, and that is when Paul first tried to come on.

The only "funny business" about Paul's being "unable to post" is the
perpetual funny business that resides in what passes for Horsey Rossy's
brain.

But in any case, here comes Paul's message, which I do not agree with
entirely, neither in its content nor its tone, since Paul and I always have
been and hopefully will remain two quite separate people:

-------------------------------------------------------

Hi Alex,

I took a look at the "debate" via Google in read-only mode.

I find the whole tone of the WASP contributors, except for the few,
alienating enough. But it's the flaming that puts me off. You know: the way
they shoot though any message adding smug little comments after each
reasonable remark.

I respectfully submit neither you nor I should waste any more time on such
morons.

Cheers

Paul

--------------------------------------------------------

First of all, I do not agree with Paul that most of you are "morons." I'll
get to that in a minute.

I also find it rather odd that Paul, being himself an Englishman from
Bradford, would refer to you as "WASPS." Though I think i know what he may
mean--the term I have found myself reaching for is the ancient 'sixties
epithet which a number of you deserve to have drafted back into usage just
for yourselves: "SQUARES."

That's what a number of you most closely resemble: "SQUARES," conformistic,
unimaginative, dignity-obsessed copycats, who will go along with anything
at all labeled as linguistics, as long as it keeps you on what Jacques quite
rightly calls the "gravy train."

But I don't believe you are morons. You are simply the victims of a wave of
terminology you can neither understand nor resist. Even though if you were
truly linguists, you would be investigating the properties of that wave of
terminology, since it so closely resembles all the other waves of
terminology that infest the religious, social, and intellectual values we
find around us.

If you were investigating those waves of terminology, you would be doing
your real duty as linguists. Instead you have simply permitted yourselves
to be overcome by the current.

There just might still be a chance for you to change all this. But I don't
think you will.

In any case, I am pleased to have delivered Paul's message to all of you.
And I hope you have enjoyed it.

all the best!

alex


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