rec.autos.simulators

Is that enough for your ego? I hope so, because this thread is
officially closed, as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, and thanks for the reading tips -- I'm just now burning all my
comics. You can bet that, thanks to your advice, I *will* read some
literature, and history -- hell, who knows? I might even try reading prose.

With deepest gratitude and humility...

[snip]

Surely this is a strawman.  You're taking your own causitive agents as
already proven (efficacy of language), and then offering a circular
"example" which closes down the issue, rather than opening it up:  English
breadth &c.=English ***; Tagalog constriction=no hope, egads.  For
what it's worth, however, I *do* think that if (a) Filipino's had undergone
an Industrial revolution, having already possessed a socio-economic
structure that rewarded limited innovation while constraining its
centrifugal effects (i.e. landed power retaining massive influence), &b,
&c,. . . their language could have become world-***.  But, as I said,
that's a straw-man, since it presupposes such a vast difference between the
actual and the imagined.  If you really want to argue in that direction,
wouldn't French be a better case?

I do think there's way to talk about language as more than a incidental in
this argument--but it would have to encompass among other things the
standardization of dialects into a more-or-less unitary whole in print
capitalism; the rise and development of, say, Dissenting colleges which
turned away from the classics and oriented students towards more "useful"
knowledge; the *heavy* role of the state in restraining Benthemite util'ism
and laissez-faire (contrary to what most folsk think about 19C Britain), et
cetera, ad nauseam.

But I say your cart is still wayyyy in front of your horse.  I'll have to
ask you to give me some sort of empirically sound example, that demonstrates
that something particular about the English language as a *system* had a
pre*** role in its wide extension in the global communication.  You
seem to feel there's something anterior to the economic and political bases
of that power.  I'd like some fleshing out of this.  At present, your
suppostion seems very idealistic, in a Hegelian sense.

[snipped remainder]

DK

No need to sulk.  The thread was actually quite a civilized discussion back
and forth until you suddenly packed up.

Stephen

I'm actually enjoying this totally OT thread, even though it has no
place in here really, but I'm picking up a few hints and tips on the use
of the English language :-)

Beers and cheers
(uncle) Goy
(who won't be writing soles instead of souls anymore, but that was my
spell checker, that's my story and I'm sticking to it :-)

"Team Mirage" http://www.teammirage.com/
"The Pits"    http://www.theuspits.com/

* Spam is for losers who can't get business any other way *
"Spamkiller"    http://www.spamkiller.com

    Barton> Is that enough for your ego? I hope so, because this
    Barton> thread is officially closed, as far as I'm concerned.

It's not about ego, really :-)

Don't take it personally, it was just a discussion and you had your
point of view, and I had mine. And like someone else said, as usenet
discussions go this one was quite civilised.

Anyway, back to GPL and NFS:PU :)

-peter

I was going to leave this alone (and I *will*, for a while, as I'm
traveling next week), but the above statement seems very much at
cross-purposes. Hegel posited a "Unified Field Theory" system of
philosophy (a system with which *your* statement "it would have to
encompass among other things the standardization of dialects into a
more-or-less unitary whole in print capitalism" would seem to most
easily fit), but *you* chide *me* for presenting an argument based on
Hegelian "idealism".

While I can agree with the second half of Hegel's "what is rational is
real and what is real is rational" ("what is real is rational" has
nearly the solid ring of Ayn Rand's "existence is" or the Buddha's "Form
is nothing else but emptiness, emptiness nothing other than form),
Hegel's dialectical abstraction regarding the tran***ation of the
Rational (*whose* definition of "rational"?) into the Real smacks way
too much of such previous chimerical ideas as the thaumaturgical
purification of lead into gold, the Music of the Spheres, and even
Angels on the heads of pins.

Be that as it may, allow me a week's rest, and I will answer your plea
below as best I can, by private email.

I'm assuming that by "anterior", you mean "anterior in time"?

Oh, and as for your peremptory and imperious "I'll have to ask you to
give me some sort of empirically sound example", I hope I can  correctly
assume that you meant that in a Monty Pythonesque way, as in:

"If you're referring to the author of 'A la recherche du temps perdu' as
a loony, I'll have to ask you to step outside!"

Bart

[small print snipped]

--
David.
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll,
really."
(Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh)

Other such bigguns include "constriction," "constraining," and
"centrifugal."  Although their initial "c's" are interesting, those hardly
big words, especially to a feller like yerseff.

--DK

in a Hegelian sense.

"Nonsense," David gurgled.

My attempts to offer some starting points, some qualifications, for your
aestheticization of language-power have nothing to do with Hegelian
dialectics, and I think you realize that.

Yes, and I stand by the statement.   When Marx turned H. upside down, he did
so for a very good reason, which you, in your argument for the "present-day
dominace" [sic] (and I'm only going to do that "[sic]" business once) of
English, continue to ignore.

That is to say, you've chosen to minimize the material bases for the English
language's victory in global popularity contests, and have chosen to posit a
rather old-hat, over-determined, idealist interpretation instead.  I think
that's wrong-headed and irresponsible of you and I've tried to persuade,
pester, goad you into reconsidering your position.

You have found that bothersome.  It was meant to be so.

As for private email: humbug.  Newsgroups are among the last spaces publicly
available for duels.

"Seconds!"

--love and kisses,
DK

[cue snippage of verbiage--oh, irony!]

{and snippage of general wisdom}

Noooooo . . . anterior in a causal sense.  Good lord . . .

Lovely.  Invoking "peremptory and imperious" as descriptions of one's
opponent is almost always. . . well . . . peremptory and imperious.

He was of course a loony.  But a good one.  Didn't step outside much, of
course. . .

Yo, yo, yo -- *you* brought Hegel into this, not I!

And now Marx, though these arguments smack more of Harpo, Chico,
Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo, than Karl...!

"present-day dominace" [sic] (and I'm only going to do that "[sic]"
business once)

Agreed, [sic] only for obvious gaffs, solecisms, or malapropisms, not
for typos...

Well, you've taken what I think of as a rather "chicken or egg?"
bootstrap process of complex historical development (encompassing both
the English languge's inherent power and the not-at-all-coincidental
fact that the 300+-year-old Information Age has been dominated by powers
for whom English is the primary language), and tried to turn it into a
polar, "either-or", "all one or all the other" didacticism. To me, it is
*your* arguments that are "old-hat, over-determined, idealist," and ,
may I add, vast oversimplifcation. "Popularity contests"! Come on, David
-- you can do better than that...

Well, they'll hate us in the morning.

"Thirds! And please bring me my coffee and cigarettes -- Nat Sherman
Naturals, please...

BB > I'm assuming that by "anterior", you mean "anterior in time"?

DK > Noooooo . . . anterior in a causal sense.  Good lord . . .

Don't exclaim "Good Lord"! Unless you're extrapolating from Jung's
"synchronicity" as an acausal connecting principle, causality IS time
dependent, especially from *your* "historicist" position.

Using the phrase "I'll have to ask you..." so reeks of the divine right
of Headmasters, that it is difficult to categorize such usage as
anything *other* than peremptory and imperious.

Au reservoir, Bon Ami!

BB