Re: Sorry Sally

On Mon, 26 Oct 1998, Mathias M. Lassailly wrote:

> Sally, I realise now how rude and contemptuous my previous post was. I
> hope you accept my apologies and that other conlangers will forgive me
> this incorrection.  Mathias.
Dear Mathias.  There is nothing to forgive.  Rather, it was I who was rude
and I abjectly apologize.  What I should have seen in you was someone,
like all of us, who is so enthusiastic and so enthralled with all of these
wonderful ideas (ergative, active, antipassive, unaspectual, unergative,
S, A, P, and so on) that you can't contain yourself--you want to discuss
it all.  I've been in that boat.  So please forgive me for being so testy.
For some reason, and I can't explain it, trying to grasp what an active
language is sets me on edge...I feel about as stupid as I do in the face
of an algebraic theorem.  I want to thank you all for putting up with me,
and especially David Durand and Tim Smith, and now it seems Mat Pearson,
and a whole bunch of others down the mail spool, for their sensible, clear
explanations.  And Mathias, I thank you for your interest and enthusiasm,
and for dealing in what I suspect may be a foreign language for you as you
try to discuss this--for me--elusive concept.  Arguments are not cases.
You'd think that a Ph.D would grasp this.

Sally

Sally Caves
scaves@frontiernet.net
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html

Rin euab ouarjo vopy vytssema tohda uo zef:
ar al aippara brottwav; ad kemban aril yllefo
brotwav fenom; vybbrysan brotwav an; he ad
edirmerem brotwav kronom.

"A cat and a man are not all that different.
Both are on my bed; both lay their head on their
arm; both have mustaches; both purr when they
sleep."
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