LJFriendlist + English
Housekeeping time.....
As should be pretty obvious from some of my other posts, it bugs me in a serious way when people who are supposedly fluent in English don't comprehend how the language works, either through what basic words mean, or other basic workings of the language.
I don't mean that it annoys me when they don't write grammatically correct sentences. I mean that it annoys me that when they are presented with a simple & short grammatically correct sentence that they don't understand what is being said. Or they don't comprehend what a word like 'all' means.
With that in mind:
Let's say you ask: "Do you think that today is a nice day?"
And I respond: "Today is a nice day"
The context of the question is that of an opinion. It sets the context for the conversation.
My response is not a declaration of objective reality, because I have not said anything to change the context.
If I had said: "Actually, it's a matter of objective fact that today is a nice day"
Here, I am changing the context of the conversation. As you had set the context for 'subjective opinion', if I want to talk about 'objective reality' I must put a qualifier into the sentence to indicate a change of context.
If I don't add that qualifier, then I'm ***NOT*** changing the context.
There are, of course, about a billion contextual markers for a question, and for an answer. Generally, if you don't understand a contextual marker when we're having a conversation then I'd expect you to clarify the marker. If you misunderstand the marker: fair enough. We can work it out.
No contextual marker, however, means (definitively) that the context has not been changed.
Yes, I understand that people change the context of conversations all the time without clarifying that they are: they suck. They do not spek gud Englis.
I am not in that camp. If you spend any amount of time discussing anything with me, you will (hopefully) have noticed that I'm quite particular about how I say things.
If you haven't noticed this: you've just been told.
If you are inclined to infer contextual changes where there are no markers: don't do so with me.
If you are surrounded by people who make contextual changes without marking their sentences so: for the good of humanity, correct them. At any time there are several million people attempting to learn English in this world. Gob[censor]s like that make the learners' lives infinitely more difficult. (nevermind that they teach people to misunderstand people-like-me)
If you understand all this, yet disagree: fair enough. I'm happy to discuss it if you can keep it civil. I'm fairly committed to this though, so I'd have to read some pretty strong reasons to change my mind. Any reason along the lines of 'but people don't use English like that' will be responded to 'well, those people clearly don't understand English then....'.
If you understand all this, and yet feel angry that I am somehow insulting you: for the love of all that's holy unfriend me already. That you recognise that you are misunderstanding English, but feel that it's acceptable to continue to live in ignorance: I don't need the hassle of me saying something, you willfully misunderstanding it, being insulted by your misunderstanding, and then you getting angry at me because you choose to continue to be an idiot. Get out of my life already. Stop wasting my time and energy. I don't want to know you. I don't want to discuss things with you. I don't want to have conversations with you.
In my opinion, 'Stupid' is *choosing* to stay the same when you recognise that there is a problem.
And for the sake of clarity, if you ask me what x tastes like 'to me' (that would be a contextual marker indicating 'this is a conversation about opinions'), and I respond 'x tastes like y': I'm giving you my opinion.
If you understand the concept of contextual markers and yet believe I'm stating an objective fact about the world, and after all this you ***STILL*** believe that's a valid interpretation (please don't make me explain how conjunction works (in detail), ***ALL*** three statements must be true for my conclusion to apply to you.....): you're an idiot. Remove me from your friends list posthaste.
Vitriolic crap will simply be deleted out of hand. All other comments are welcome. :)