Re: The Origins of Zürich...

On Wed, 03 Jan 2007 01:13:02 GMT, Heidi Graw
<hgraw@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<yqDmh.110190$rv4.11163@edtnps90">news:yqDmh.110190$rv4.11163@edtnps90> in sci.lang:

[...]

Peter, I'm fully aware that linguistics is at best an inexact science.

You cannot have any idea how exact or inexact it is: you
know nothing of it.

I don't discount anything.

But you do: you routinely accept the most obvious drivel
from the local cranks and discount the information that you
receive from people who actually do know something about the
subject.

I collect anything and everything, even if it's
contrairy. I bear *all* of this in mind. Some of what I
collect appears more reasonable than some other stuff.
I give more weight to that what makes most sense and
what is best supported.

You aren't capable of judging what is best supported: you
don't know enough. And that is not an insult: it's simply
an informed judgement based on what you post.

Contrary to what you suggested elsewhere, it doesn't bother
me in the slightest that you're not a linguist; neither am
I. It doesn't bother me that you're ignorant of the
subject, either: everyone starts that way. And your
apparent stupidity, though occasionally exasperating, mostly
inspires pity. Your steadfast refusal actually to study
what interests you is rather worse: it makes you a beggar
who refuses to accept work. (To be fair, I very much doubt
that you have the slightest idea of what it means actually
to study something: picking up pretties here and there isn't
study.) Still, if this were the extent of the problem,
you'd get a significantly less negative reaction, even from
me.

The real problem is the breathtaking arrogance that you
display in dismissing information that comes to you as a
gift from people who know enough to help you and are willing
to take the time to do so. You put yourself in the position
of someone who can't even count to ten yet presumes to
correct an accountant's arithmetic by telling him to forget
that 13 business, 4 + 9 = 25.

And *that* is contemptible.

[...]
.

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