Re: Conjunctives, etc...

Chris:

On 5/14/07, Chris Weimer <christopher.m.weimer@...> wrote:

> Sorry, Dirk. I don't need it for myself. Perhaps I wasn't too clear. I'm
> looking for an easy web reference, handy at that, that clarifies the use
> of
> conjunctives in all their possibilities. That Latin would be included
> would
> have been a plus, primarily because I know how to use them. And yes, an
> afternoon at my university's library certainly can provide more
> satisfactory
> answers, but I figured why spend the whole afternoon in the library
> searching for something which may already be available online.
>
> Someone pointed me towards Lojban, which I've yet to peruse, but I think
> it
> may have been what I was looking for as far as the handy explanations are
> concerned.

Thank you for the apology. I'll leave it to Ray to judge if you were rude to
him, but yes, a bit more context may have helped the original query.

You might want to google "Martin Haspelmath" and "conjunction"--he wrote a
chapter for a typology survey on conjunctions and edited a volume on
conjunction in the world's languages. You might turn up something helpful.



> "And as for politeness, just because academics fling verbal poo at each
> other in the journals and at conferences is no excuse to put up with
> the same thing here, where the majority of list members are not
> academics."
>
> I don't personally find my own response offensive. I mean, the guy was
> giving me a layman's introduction to Latin conjunctions, which is nice,
> but
> I just didn't need it. I thanked him and said that I was sorry that he
> provided something which I wasn't looking for. Not only that, but he
> himself
> didn't indicate in his post that I was somehow "rude", which later persons
>
> on this email list accused me of being, and him of agreeing to.

I was more dismayed by your later post's excusing rudeness as a part of
scholarship--even if it was scholarship of a by-gone era. As I said, we are
not all academics here, and those of us who are don't expect that kind of
discourse on this list. And you are right; Ray has not said anything about
being offended, so we had probably better leave it to him to judge. But
there was a time on the list when we had several cranky people who did give
offense--it eventually led to many people leaving. Perhaps feelings are
still tender.



> How would you feel if you asked for a beer, and someone gave you an
> O'Doules? I mean, that's mighty generous that they would offer you a
> non-alcoholic beer, I'd politely turn it down. At least, it was polite to
> me.

Well, as a Mormon, I wouldn't be likely to ask for a beer :-), but I
understand what you're saying.



> What could I possibly have said to him if he offered me something which to
> me was useless?

I have always taken an unhelpful reply to be a sign that my original query
was not adequately framed. This of course assumes that the reply was meant
to be helpful. So *I* may have simply rephrased the question.

Dirk