The Rosenfelder Challenge

[ashmoonfruit]

Well, it depends what you mean by 'meaningful'.

[Pthagnar]

you're the author of
philosophy
by
ash
so why don't you tell us?

[Vuvuzela]

I once read a blog by a health specialist that suggested that said that soup was not the only thing necessary for a person to be happy. I worked in a homeless shelter, and found that soup, along with shelter,company, and other factors, did indeed make homeless people more happy. In conclusion, soup is sufficient to make people happy. If you disagree with my conclusion, well, you're just a mean, mean person who sits up in their ivory tower while I stay happy and magical and full of life.

[cromulant]

"Old news" you say? Is there anything here that someone else hasn't already said?

I'm not the one claiming to have done something interesting.

[ashmoonfruit]

[gingerly steps into potential minefield]

It's none of your business, really - but I'll elaborate on the 3 magic phrases:
1 - "I'm sorry"
2 - "You're right"
3 - "I love you"

When confronted with a completely irrational girlfriend/wife who's pissed off (an occurrence which is, of course, very rare and entirely down to male failings), time-honoured wisdom dictates that flowers, chocolates and a sincere "I love you" will earn the victim, sorry, loving boyfriend/husband, a reprieve.

However, they are on to that strategy. It's just too simple. Something slightly more subtle is required.

Starting out with "I'm sorry" is a nifty passive-aggressive position, giving the loved one in question a feeling of power. This is good, but she is likely to be suspicious. So, it's important to follow it up with "You're right" followed by a paraphrase of whatever it was that she was nag... entitled to complain about. She'll soften, due to the impression that you have listened to her. If she hasn't, listen to her, and paraphrase some more. Then pick the right moment for "I love you". If that doesn't work, give up and pursue your long-standing latina fantasy, or something.

[cromulant]

(Nor did any say anything you hadn't ignored.)

[Kereb]

hahahaha jesus christ

bunch of hilarious misogynist bullshit

uh yeah
bitches be trippin amirite
gotta handle em
here's the formula
lolololol


jeeeesus

[Kereb]

I guess what we can take from this is that in his personal life, he ignores what people are mad at him for too

oh shit, someone's mad at me, what's the formula again?
mad at me on the internet -- evade, ignore, maintain "aloof" persona

mad at me and has a vagina -- "yes dear ... i. am. sorry. you. are. right. i. love. you. may these chocolates quell your hormonal tempests."

[Pthagnar]

how on earth did you leave such wisdom out of
Philosophy
by
Ash
sive Tractatus platitudinus, it is proper banter

[Cthulhu_Inc]

What is this I don't even

[ashmoonfruit]

I didn't. Minus the misogynist bullshit, it's right there on p. 65 - it's even neatly summed up in the box-out with the Jimmy Carr quote: "If you haven't got anything nice to say, fuck off." Listen up, cunts.

[Kereb]

so when what you had to say was that people interested in the nuts and bolts of language should drop their interest and "get out more", or when you attributed disagreement with you to asperger's syndrome, why exactly did you opt for saying those instead of fucking off

[Pthagnar]

it's very easy to go off somebody, isn't it?

[Yng]

but it was the misogynist bullshit we were talking about

[Vuvuzela]

When approaching the female human in her natural habitat, we must appeal to these wondrous beasts' natural instinct. Nature has given them a wondrous adaptation; an almost supernatural sense of when a predator is being passive aggressive. Our passive aggression must be too subtle for even her to detect. If this fails, and the specimen seeks out a mate who is direct and forthcoming, then we can safely conclude that she, to use professional jargon, "only dates jerks".

Oh. And you have to read that in the poshest RP to ever be poshly RP. Probably should have mentioned that.

[clawgrip]

I didn't. Minus the misogynist bullshit, it's right there on p. 65 - it's even neatly summed up in the box-out with the Jimmy Carr quote: "If you haven't got anything nice to say, fuck off." Listen up, cunts.

There's really no point in getting hostile. It's not going to make things better. I suggest you just calm down a bit and concede that you may have overstated your accomplishments, even if there were certainly new ideas for you to take away from your experience. I'm sure the people on this board will be accepting of a little humility and demonstration of that self-effacing attitude. But actively burning bridges isn't going to get you anywhere.

[Pthagnar]

a short while ago, maybe that would have been true

[ashmoonfruit]

Well, I haven't had this much fun trading bullshit since that incident with the capitalists, but it's late, I'm tired, and I have some terribly high brow linguistics to do tomorrow. I'm sorry if I've given a bad impression of myself and wasted your time with my nonsense. I have genuinely taken notes about many of the excellent points that you have all made. While I may have appeared pointlessly argumentative and resistant to informed opinion, I fully appreciate that on several counts, you're right. It's true that I overstated my case. No really, it's hard to separate the irony from what is genuine at this point, but I'm honestly glad to have had this conversation. It's not everywhere that such intelligence, charm and good looks can be found. I lov... - no, too far. Seriously, though, thanks. I'm not burning bridges, I'm just getting some sleep in. Hasta luego.

I'm out of nice things to say - time to...

[ashmoonfruit]

ps. I think linguistics is an excellent pursuit, and never intended to discourage anyone from engaging in it - only to reassure those who are crap at it that they can still achieve plenty of stuff with modest knowledge. Not new, but still true.

I have a (mild) west country accent, and I'm really not posh at all, or ever was.

x

[Torco]

you're welcome, dirtasteroidvegetable

(why list 'off topic' as grounds for reporting if it's a passtime? ...and so on)

this is a good question... why is off topic grounds for reporting? that might explain why so many noobs report off-topic posts, right? the board software gives'em the wrong idea. and then they whine. why do newbs whine so?

Although I arrived with the assumption that a conlang forum would be filled with conlangers, I realised early on that this place is more about linguistics (recreational linguistics, even?) than conlangs. This was evident from the fact that I posted my conlang, and it was ignored (although the pdf was download dozens of times - perhaps by visitors?). So, it's an odd sort of conlang forum - how would a Jabba-inspired kid with a language of 50 words get on?

See? that's just passive aggresive: kiddo, in order to be a conlanger you need to know languages, historical linguistics, grammar, phonology, sociolinguistics, history, and philosophy of 'langs, just like in order to be a painter you need to know color, composition, contrast, values, shading, and technique. you don't go to a conlanging board [the biggest, most active one, afaik] and go 'oh, I thought there were conlangers here, but people don't agree with me'. popular conlangs are popular not because they're good conlangs, but because they're part of a popular franchise, they have had marketing, Quenya/Sindarin, for example. Huttese is a good example as well. following the painting analogy, they're like movie posters; all well and good, but not Roberto Matta by any stretch of the imagination.

I once read a blog by a health specialist that suggested that said that soup was not the only thing necessary for a person to be happy. I worked in a homeless shelter, and found that soup, along with shelter,company, and other factors, did indeed make homeless people more happy. In conclusion, soup is sufficient to make people happy. If you disagree with my conclusion, well, you're just a mean, mean person who sits up in their ivory tower while I stay happy and magical and full of life.

that suggested that said that soup? what?
also, this summary is best summary

[Rodlox]

"Old news" you say? Is there anything here that someone else hasn't already said?

yes there is: SIL called; they'd like their superiority back.

Hey, I earn my travel cash, and partly from manual labour -

Is the other part legal, or did you just bake cavies throughout your trip?

Bourgeois? Well, I never let my irrational class hatreds get in the way of reason. Some say philosophy is inherently bourgeois.

and what about the people who ramble about what others say about philosophy?

[Rodlox]

Yes. That is all you did. It is not a big deal. This is a trend.

You will have noticed guide books? That they have in the back a wordlist? Of potentially useful words?

The word lists in guide books are different. They follow a formula that is designed to help package tourists get through hotels and taxis, try out some local cuisine, get sunburned, buy some souvenirs and fuck off back to suburbia without having to learn any more language than is in the book. They never reach the point of immersion, and they don't want to.

That's the tourist's choice, not the book's enforcing.

My word list is designed to support more open-ended conversation, so that the user can... I don't know...

exactly.

The similarity is superficial. The difference is not only in the intent of the user, but also in the ratio between the amount of content to learn and the resultant range of expression. As soon as the conversation veers outside the limited contexts covered by the phrase book (ie. starts to get interesting), the user is fucked. Whereas, with a bunch of fairly general nouns, adjectives, verbs and other bits and pieces, you can continue that conversation. The results are incomparable.

if the conversation veers outside the contexts....you use what you've learned by then.

[Kereb]

you got here too late, Rodlox. Fun's over.

[zompist]

I'm going to shut this down for a bit.

Ash, you need to cool down a bit and respond more thoughtfully than quickly. Explore the board a bit and talk, if you want, about some topics that are not yourself. If you find you can't do that, the appropriate place to be is a blog, not a board.