- Anything Else -
history, usenet, academia, etc.
Posted by: Floyd ( oh blah, blah, blah, same bad pun I wrote last time ) on November 23, 1999 at 10:24:03:
In Reply to: Better yet, pronounce posted by MDG on November 22, 1999 at 17:16:46:
: What is it with constant references to others to buttress one's belief system?References are an academic tradition dating way, way back. (Why do you suppose Jesus refered to the Old Testament prophets, huh?) The point is that if one person thinks something, so what? Maybe he's a looney. But if two or more people think something, maybe there's something to it. In addition, citations to related literature give the author of a post the ability to make points very briefly that otherwise would take up tons of space and be a pain in the tuchas for the poor overworked moderators. Korzybski's opus is a two volume set of over 1000 pages, and the good people at McS have better things to do with their time than read through my recap of his work, as I have more important things to do than type it. Besides, in the old days, when bandwith was more of a concern, particularly for usenet groups, brevity was a vital consideration, as it still is in printed materials. Thus writers developed the tradition of citing other works so we wouldn't each have to start from first principles every time we said something. Now, would you mind telling me what your subject line ("Better yet, pronounce") was meant to communicate? I can't figure out what you meant at all.
-Floyd
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