Re: OT: In the 'ignorance on parade' file

At 8:24 am -0500 13/8/01, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>claudio wrote:
>
>> ambiguity is not only bad , its evil.
>
>The question is not so much whether ambiguity is a desirable thing,
>but rather, if it is possible for the world to exist without it.
Indeed.
[snip]
>
>Come now.  We need not be rude.  This is the great beauty of this list:
>that people have, traditionally, accorded others the greatest respect,
>even when they disagree violently and viscerally with each other.
Depends how far back one takes tradition.  A look through the archives will
show that this was not always so.  But in the last few years things have
been much pleasanter.

But this present thread is so depressing. For me: "and foreign words
disturb the pureness of a langauge" is far too close to "and foreign blood
disturbs the pureness of a race".  I saw at Auschwitz what that means -
Ugh!!!

"i neglect to speak about races here to not support your silly cliches."
If that ain't ambiguous, I don't know what is?

Is it supporting racism?  Is it disowning racism?  I don't know.

As James O'Connell James wrote:
>I can't quite believe this debate - there is no such
>thing as linguistic purity,
Of course not - and I can't quite believe this debate either; it like
something out of a twisted, nightmarish version of Alice in Wonderland.

Well, I shall be going nomail for a couple of weeks - off walking in north
Portugal - and I hope sanity has returned when I come back to the list.

Ray.

=========================================
A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
=========================================

Reply