You shouldn't be going around claiming that some person (especially a known litigious one) fits the description of a particular mental disorder. Unless you can *prove* it, and are willing to do so, in a court of law.
Otherwise, you need to make your wording very carefully. "Jack Thompson appears to me that he fits many of the criteria of schizophrenia."
The second you start spouting this as fact, if it's defamatory then Jack Thompson *can* sue you under US defamation law, and the only defense that you have left (because you claimed it is fact) is to actually back that assertion up with proof, and prove that it's is indeed a statement of fact.
Which is very hard to do with a psychiatric disorder, unless you examined him. In which case, you'd be breaking doctor-patient priviledge by divulging this information to Slashdot.
Either way, if you're going to rock the boat, make sure you're not the one that's going to get all wet.
Well, in Britain you don't have fully the same protections as here in America (or the other way around, if you consider from the victim's perspective.)
In Britain you're expected some privacy, whether public or private, and even if something is true, if it is spoken/published in such a way that there is nothing to be gained other than defamation of the person, then even if it's true, then it's wrong.
For instance, say while you were running against an opponent in an election, and you started outwardly saying that your opponent is homosexual. If this defames your opponent, whether true or not. So asking them to check a box on a slip of paper declaring their sexual orientation wouldn't save your butt.
Now as far as opinion... crap, I forgot that part of non-US law. I'm sure it's pretty much the same. Of course, the other nifty trick I learned that German uses heavily is to put the phrase into the subjunctive. That way the whole sentence is spoken as if it could be contrary to fact.
Thus, "Jack Thompson were a liar, and an idiot." is covered because it's by nature of grammar contrary to fact. So you could really say anything like, "Jack Thompson were to molest young boys, and spank their bottoms." I mean, he can TRY and sue me over those ones, but they're by nature of grammar a statement contrary to fact, and thus by gramatical features it's obvious that it is intended that they're not statements of fact, and thus not applicable to defamation law.
If you couldn't tell, I enjoy learning little details of language and linguistics and stuff like this. Plus, I've been in a few situations where it's important to watch what you're saying about a particular person.
"This guy has really made himself a credible source for irrationality"
The problem is that he *IS* rational, and makes a rational argument. Just many people are so hell-bent on attacking the guy that they forget this fact. He bases clear sound and logical arguments.
The problem is that his whole argument is built upon certain premisses that just don't coincide with any reality that I'm aware of. He claims that people "train on GTA to kill cops"? What part about GTA lets me pick up a gun and use it to kill a cop? It may train my behavior, but it doesn't train those skills that I need to shoot a weapon with the accuracy that people like, the Columbine shooters exhibited.
When I loaded up this radio program I was ready to hear some crackpot wizzing away again like all the other crackpots out there. But this guy isn't like that. He's intelligent, and sane. He's just using some fantasy pixie-dust premisses that support his preconceived opinion that artistic violence envokes violence in the audience.
I wonder what he'd have to say about the real Grimm Fairytales... "Of course we started the Crusades, just look at what they were teaching their kids! After a decade of training on stories of knights kill things and wolves eating small children, they had the whole skillset needed to launch a massive compaign to regain the Holy Land!"
The two sides in the abortion debate call themselves "pro-choice" and "pro-life", each reflecting the value that seems most important to them in that debate. However, when the Washington Post or CNN report on abortion issues, the terms they use are "pro-choice" and "anti-abortion." Those terms, justified by both as being 'more accurate' are a reflection of the bias of those organizations. In the worldview of their editors, the opposite of "pro-choice" is "antiabortion", regardless of how those "antiabortionists" actually see themselves.
They're NOT calling them "pro-choice" and "anti-choice". They're using "pro-choice" and "anti-abortion".
And I wouldn't mind "pro-choice" and "anti-choice" anyways, because at least it would be more consistent. But then you're laying authenticity to one side, by using their self-defined named, and against the other side, because you're using the opposite of the other person's claim.
Let's get around ALL THE FUCKING BULLSHIT, and call it like it is. There are people for and against abortions, for a myriad of reasons, and not just because of "choice" or "life".
And your opinion about the law is something that can *change*. By declaring a fetus a legally protectable entity, you could make abortion child-abuse resulting in the death of the child.
Yes, the law as it stands now is the right of the woman to PRIVACY in her first trimester (that's all the Supreme Court allowed. Everyone jumped on the band-wagon and extended it though. It's never made it back to the Supreme Court to be validated though, that it would be alright later in the pregnancy.) This later moved into the reason: "She has the CHOICE to do with her body what she wills."
Some interesting tidbits: The law as it is now allows for charging someone of a crime for which the condition has to be that a person has died, if they somehow maliciously or neglegently enact a change upon a pregnant womans body such that her unborn fetus dies. That's right, you can get charged for vehicular manslaughter for hitting a pregnant woman if you cause her pregnancy to terminate, but yet it's perfectly legal if you have her permission to terminate her pregnancy.
I honestly don't care that much about the abortion issue. Both sides are stupid silly about things. Some people want to protect the life of the child, which is admirable, and at least their laws were consistent. And some people want to allow abortions, which yeah, in many cases is good. I think there's a serious health risk in using it as a form of "contraception" though. In many of these cases, people would be getting an abortion SOMEHOW, and that's usually in a dark alley with a coathanger (exaggerating some, but it's defintely not usually a sterile safe environment.)
It wasn't that long ago that CONTRACEPTION itself was illegal.
Look, I'd just like to see pointless abortions stopped. Like, people using it instead of birth control. I've been on the moral high horse before saying that all abortions are wrong, but seriously, there are people who are going to do it ANYWAYS, so we may as well make it safe for them....
Oh yeah, and not hold the other side to rules that you're not applying to yourself, or degrading them just because they believe different than you. And that applies equally well across both sides. So, let's stick to this simple criterium: ABORTION. You're either for or against it. You may have some "moral grounds" upon which you base your argument, but everyone does, so shut up with them. Argue the point at hand. What does Abortion accomplish? What is it used for? Does it add a net benefit or net loss to the society?
Who gives a shit if you think that a baby's life is more important than the mother's choice to carry it, or vice-versa. Let's actually look at the real issue of Abortion and decide if its a good thing apart from any moral implications. As much as anti-abortionists claim moral high ground, so do the pro-abortionists.
So your only comeback is to point out a typo, and a choice of wording that you wouldn't choose yourself?
I mean, I know you have an English degree, but recall, that I haven't restrict myself to just English. I have a few languages rattling around in my head that sometimes via for control over my speech.
It's not like a spell check, or grammar check, or even sometimes re-read my posts before I make them. This isn't a place where formal English speech is require, "ya' got me?"
So, basically, you lampoon my FACTS with "you're stupid because you make typos, hehe, you sux0r, bye bye"
Fuck your self righteous position that English is innately better than all other languages in the world. This is part of the reason why foreigners hate us so much, because we get to their country and say, "You don't speak English? What a fucking joke."
If you have *FACTUAL* content to contribute, please do, I'm willing to listen and hear arguments, but if the best you can come up with is "you made a typo, so you suck", then go fuck yourself.
No, insults can't. Well... this need be clarrified. Only a statement of fact can be considered libelous or slanderous. Thus, if the insult has a statement of fact in it, as in for example: "Jack Thompson is a liar." (This is an example, don't sue me Jack Thompson.) Then you open yourself up for libel, because it can be argued that the statement is intended as a statement of fact, and if it were wrong, then would be libelous/slanderous. (Note: in the US, truth is an absoulte defense to libel/slander, and thus no matter how offense or degrading the statement might be; if it's true, you gotta live with it.)
Now, just add some words to make it obviously a joke, "Jack Thompson is a big fat stupid liar liar pants on fire." You cut yourself free. Or, add information to explicitly state it's an opinion, "In my opinion, Jack Thompson is a lawyer."
But there are few things that are never a statement of fact under US law. These include profane statements. Like: "Jack Thompson is an asshole." Completely protected right from the get go, because it's profane.
So, looking at this stuff. In order to claim libel, you have to establish that Jack Thompson's claim against PA is: not profane, intended as a statement of fact, not true, and damaging to their image.
The point failing here is the "intended as a statement of fact". You can't argue that Jack Thompson intended "idiot" as a statement of fact, but rather as a "semi-profane" insult. Idiot has an exact definition, and a epithetical usage. If he didn't intend it with that exact definition, then it's not libel. And I think it would hard to establish that Jack Thompson did intend to say that the people of Penny Arcade have an IQ low enough to establish the definition of "idiot."
Look, "pro-lifer" isn't on the same level as God. Look, let me lay this out.
Pro-life: Feel that the potential-life that the child might have is more important than the rights of the mother.
Pro-choice: Feel that the rights of the mother outweigh any potential-life that the child might have.
You can label pro-life people in at least 3 different ways: "pro-life", "anti-abortion", "anti-choice".
You can label pro-choice people in at least 3 different ways: "anti-life", "pro-abortion", "pro-choice".
Is it so much to ask, that people represent both sides with a agreeing stature? Either both pro- or both anti-. Don't make up some logical reason why you're showing them opposite unless you're actually drawing a contrast. If they called them "anti-abortion" and "pro-abortion" then there's nothing wrong. If they call them "anti-abortion" and "pro-choice" then they're showing favoritism.
Since I've been taking the position of "in a process report document" passive is necessary, the context would be:
"After the unit was brought into the testing area, it was properly strapped in, and the tests were begun."
Fact is that any setence, active or not will lack this sort of context to know what exactly is intended by the sentence. But this context should help people to reach further into completing this little puzzle. (And you're right, I was missing enough context to make it solvable the first time.)
Awesome problem. Even with the solutions laid out I was all, huh?
Took me some deep thought even with the solution in front of me to figure it out. I suppose everyone just has to find their own way to wrap their brain around the problem.
Well, the real problem here is actually to native English speakers. Many languages have clear and accurate responses to negative questions. Let's take some examples, starting with English, then we'll touch Japanese, then German. All sentences given are grammatically/semantically correct responses for the respective language.
In English, the speaker agrees his "yes/no" response with his sentence. Thus, you use "no" only when you're responding with sentence in the negative. Did you watch TV?No, I didn't watch TV. Did you watch TV?Yes, I did watch TV. Did you not watch TV?No, I didn't watch TV. Did you not watch TV?Yes, I did watch TV.
In Japanese, the speaker's "hai/iie" response to the affirmation or negation of the question. This matches English for the positive, but is opposite for the negative. terebi o mitta?iie, minakatta. (Did you watch TV? No, I didn't.) terebi o mitta?hai, mitta. (Did you watch TV? Yes, I did.) terebi o minakatta?hai, minakatta. (Did you not watch TV? Yes, I didn't.) terebi o minakatta?iie, mitta. (Did you not watch TV? No, I did.)
In German, you have two pairs. For positive sentences you use "ja/nein" same as English, but for negative sentences, you have "ja/doch", responding on the affirmation of negation of the question. Hast du ferngesehen?Nein, ich habe nicht. (Did you watch TV? No, I didn't.) Hast du ferngesehen?Ja, ich habe. (Did you watch TV? Yes, I did.) Hast du nicht ferngesehen?Ja, ich habe nicht. (Did you not watch TV? Yes, I didn't.) Hast du nicht ferngesene?Doch, ich habe. (Did you not watch TV? Wrong, I did.)
This is generally why (at least this is the purpose behind it, even if it were not conciously the reaosn) the English-speaking militaries use a pair like "affirmative/negative" for responses. Because the response is consistent upon the question asked (a la natural Japanese).
Of course, English causes even more pitfalls with even positive questions: "Do you mind if I eat that?" "Yeah, go ahead." Since your response isn't a negative sentence, you say "yes" as per reasons above, even though we all know that "yeah" means, "I do mind if you eat that."
Anyways, the majority of people have problems with negative statements, even in their native language. Few languages actually have sufficiently consistent terms for responses to avoid this abiguity.
"The unit was strapped in." Please make *that* into an active sentence.
Straps held the unit.
This doesn't indicate a change in state. It just indicates that the straps were holding the unit, not that as a matter of the process the unit became strapped in.
Good try though, thought I had you good with that one.;)
And don't worry about the whole correction stuff... I should have read correctly the first time;)
Murder is wrong for more than just social stigma. Instead let's take alcohol. The US has tried to ban that before because it's "wrong", and look where that went. It's because it's a social stigma that it's wrong, not because it's inherantly wrong itself.
Reading an entire document in the passive voice does not bother me. Yes, it bothers you, and it bothers many people, that's why you don't use it in English. That simple.
Anything people do to overcompensate for their feelings of inadequecy in writing is bad. Take the vast vocabulary that many people pull out when writing essays in high school and college. This one time, I corrected a girls paper, and she complained that I "took out all her big words." I pointed her to my paper, and said, "you used them wrong, and to point, look at my paper... see any of that crap going on here?"
The idea of process report documents is not to obscure the information. The idea of process report documents is to report what happened, not which employee did what. You said yourself, there are times when the passive voice is warranted. In a process report document, such a voice is necessary to the very core of the purpose of the document.
Since it's apparent that you actually do go back and read comments to your AC posts.
Other languages will die off because they lack the semantic accuracy of English.
WTF? Where did you get that English has a better semantic accuracy than every other language. Do you have some evidence or something? Do you even speak another language than English? You have a degree in English, so it's apparent that you're biased towards English.
But seriously, I speak a handful of different languages, and I've never found a reason to call English superior to any other because of "semantic accuracy".
Yeah, because Lord knows, all those people out there speaking German, and French, and Chinese, and making the same lives as us, and developing technologies just like us... yeah, it would all be better if they spoke English for that "semantic accuracy".
Fuck, get off your English bias. English is more superior in the marketplace than German/French/Chinese, because it's the dominate language of the world's leading edge. No other reason. There is no innate feature of English that makes it better or worse than any other language for any reasaon what so ever. It's all social disposition.
Yeah, I'll agree that from the English perspective, the passive voice is uninteresting and unengaging. Because that is how native speakers percieve it. But there's nothing innate about the passive voice to ground this on. It's just social opinion, which is fine to base style rules upon.
I just prefer people to relate matters accurately rather than perpetuate silly reasons. (Those that lay people feel are logical grounded, but in fact fail to meet evidence. Like the sun orbits around the earth. (note from the perspective of the earth, the sun *does* go around the earth. It does not *orbit* the earth though, which is more meaningful, strict, and interesting.))
If it's something that is socially contructed and socially dictated, and has no innate evidence for it, then social dictate is fine. Like, "women are more beautiful than men." (people would no doubt attempt to prove this, but there exists remote tribes of people where men are considered more beautiful than women, and social roles are almost entirely swapped between the two genders. Given a counter-example, the statement is thus false.)
So, given any grammatical stylistic perscription that people can dictate, there exists a counter-example in at least another language that proves that such a perscription is not necessarily the only logical choice. Thus, perscription fails if it attempts to apply "logic" and "reason" on its rules, rather it should be based upon the etiquette of formal speech. "You do this this way, because that's how we use it in formal English speech." This applies across all perscriptionist rules, and actuall works. Of course, then you get those "rebels" that insist that they do stuff different. Well, you just tell them that it's not socially accepted formal speech, and they need to conform, or they will bring the wrath of non-compliance upon themselves.
Imagine a school clic that would identify itself as "linguistic non-conformists." That'd be funny.
I'm not ending a sentence with a preposition. I'm ending the sentence with an additional word that follows the verb, which just happens to look identical to a preposition. I'm not using the verb: "to strap" and then a preposition of "in" + some location. I'm using the verb "to strap in". Compare: "I strapped in the car." This does *not* mean, "I was strapping, and the location of that strapping was in the car." It means "I took the car, and strapped it in."
This confusion has been propogated by Prescriptionists for no bloody reason, except maybe that Latin didn't do it, or something like that. But fact is that Germanic languages are often known to use seperable and inseperable affixes to their verbs. German and Dutch are most apparent, because they're V2, thus the word "aufsteigen" (to climb up) is generally written together, but then in a sentence it become "ich steige auf." (I climb up.) Here the "preposition" auf is placed at the end of the sentence. So, I hear you "yeah, whatever, this is German, it's not English."
Well, let's move to Swedish, on the other side of the Germanic Language tree, and you'll see that while they don't have the words directly affixed, they are still considiered averbial suffixes. Example: "klättra uppför". (to climb up) Here the verb infinitive is "klättra", and the suffix is "uppför", you can't drop that suffix without changing the semantic meaning of the sentence. It's "Jag klättrar uppför" (I climb up), that's how it's used, and "uppför" is not a preposition at the end of a sentence, it's a suffix to the verb.
Now, while we have all these complex verbal phrases out there like "to strap in" and "to climb up". It's interesting to note that English shows the same features as all of the other Germanic languages: adverbial affixes that look exactly the same as a preposition. It's easily demonstrable that it's the German verbal system. Prescriptionists just don't listen to Linguists though, they listen to their damned style manuals that don't take much more than a surface examination of the language and attempt to dictate reason upon it.
Learning foreign languages you begin to learn that all that crap that Prescriptionists tell you is wrong, is actually done in other languages all around the world, in fact to the perscription of their own language guidelines! So, while English Prescriptionists are telling you "don't use double negatives, because it means the opposite of what you're trying to say," there are major languages out there that "violate" this logic. And when they say "don't end a sentence with a preposition", they neglect evidence shown by other languages that these are not prepositions, they're adverbial affixes to the verb. And when they say "don't split infinitives" they don't know what the hell they're talking about because there isn't a way to put another word between the "b" and "e" in "be", which is the real infinitive. ("I can see." Where's the infinitive in that sentence? "see", not "to see", German and Swedish follow the same rules about when you say "to verb" or "zu verb" or "att verb" respectively, but you don't see them saying that it's part of their infinitive.)
Note, that these three rules are slowly growing out of merit among perscriptionists, because they're starting to realize that hey, linguists actually know what they're talking about, and can make a rational explanation for this feature of natural speech. The only one they keep is double negatives, saying that "agreement of negation should not be done with negative words, but rather with indefinite words, as this is the established formal standard." Which is true.
But you still won't see those elementary school teachers, who are stupid, changing their deeply rooted opinions on this matter.
First, "The window broke" only works because "to break" is a dual-use transitive/intransitive. Not every word in English is like this. "The unit was strapped in." Please make *that* into an active sentence.
Oh, and don't use "someone" or "something", because both of those restrict the actor to either animate, or inanimate, while my sentence doesn't make any such restriction. Also, they create a greater air of uncertainty as to the agent of the sentence. "Someone strapped the unit in." makes it sound like, "I came into the lab, and someone had already strapped the unit in." Not, "As according to the process, the unit was strapped in."
Also, "The window has been broken for 3 weeks." *is* a passive sentence. The past perfect for "to be" (is) is "to have been" (has been). Thus, "I am a programmer." and "I have been a programmer for 3 weeks." Changing the tense of the sentence to make it seem like it's not a passive sentence shouldn't count for making it non-passive.
The passive isn't any less or more ambiguous than every setence that we use in English. It just has a bad rep, because stylistic perscriptionists declare that you should't use it. Meanwhile, in German, the perscriptivists *suggest* the passive, because it's an uncommon usage form that takes the tone of the sentence out of the "everyday".
More accurately to the point. The sentence "Something broke the window." implies that the writer doesn't even know what broke the window. While, "The windows was broken." Indicates that they have an idea of what broke it, but it's not important. And in a process report would indicate that the action was perhaps even part of the process. Compare:
In testing the VeloMatic A, the test unit was placed in the restraint system in front of the window, then as the test concluded, the window was broken.
With:
In testing the VeloMatic A, the test unit was placed in the restraint system in front of the window, then as the test concluded, something broke the window.
There's god damn nothing wrong with the Passive Voice except that it has a stigmatic notion in English. In German, it has a air of respectability to it over the active voice. Thus, in German if you want to sound more respectable, you use the passive more.
I spoke with my Dad on this topic once. He worked on process documents and reports. The idea is that you put everything in the passive, because the agents of the senteces are not to be indicated. You don't write "Bob strapped the VeloMatic A into the restraint system." no. You don't say who did what, it doesn't matter who did what, just that it was done. "The VeloMatic A was strapped into the restraint system."
Thats right, because of the restistry, stuff just works. We have installs that just work. We have programs that can talk to eachother, and it just works. Linux, not so much.
Mac OSX. File based information stored in a regularized library-accessed manner through either the/Library directory (requiring root level access) or the ~/Library (requiring ownership level access).
With that, OSX stuff just works. They have installs that just work (in fact, many times you can just copy the directory over from install media to harddrive, like back in the days of DOS. What to uninstall an app? Just delete it off your harddrive.) They have programs that can talk to each other, and it just works.
Your argument fails because things can "just work" only because you butted enough heads at it. Not because it's actually GOOD, but just because you beat it with enough people and money. Example: See x86.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, THIS is dangerous.
You shouldn't be going around claiming that some person (especially a known litigious one) fits the description of a particular mental disorder. Unless you can *prove* it, and are willing to do so, in a court of law.
Otherwise, you need to make your wording very carefully. "Jack Thompson appears to me that he fits many of the criteria of schizophrenia."
The second you start spouting this as fact, if it's defamatory then Jack Thompson *can* sue you under US defamation law, and the only defense that you have left (because you claimed it is fact) is to actually back that assertion up with proof, and prove that it's is indeed a statement of fact.
Which is very hard to do with a psychiatric disorder, unless you examined him. In which case, you'd be breaking doctor-patient priviledge by divulging this information to Slashdot.
Either way, if you're going to rock the boat, make sure you're not the one that's going to get all wet.
Well, in Britain you don't have fully the same protections as here in America (or the other way around, if you consider from the victim's perspective.)
In Britain you're expected some privacy, whether public or private, and even if something is true, if it is spoken/published in such a way that there is nothing to be gained other than defamation of the person, then even if it's true, then it's wrong.
For instance, say while you were running against an opponent in an election, and you started outwardly saying that your opponent is homosexual. If this defames your opponent, whether true or not. So asking them to check a box on a slip of paper declaring their sexual orientation wouldn't save your butt.
Now as far as opinion... crap, I forgot that part of non-US law. I'm sure it's pretty much the same. Of course, the other nifty trick I learned that German uses heavily is to put the phrase into the subjunctive. That way the whole sentence is spoken as if it could be contrary to fact.
Thus, "Jack Thompson were a liar, and an idiot." is covered because it's by nature of grammar contrary to fact. So you could really say anything like, "Jack Thompson were to molest young boys, and spank their bottoms." I mean, he can TRY and sue me over those ones, but they're by nature of grammar a statement contrary to fact, and thus by gramatical features it's obvious that it is intended that they're not statements of fact, and thus not applicable to defamation law.
If you couldn't tell, I enjoy learning little details of language and linguistics and stuff like this. Plus, I've been in a few situations where it's important to watch what you're saying about a particular person.
"This guy has really made himself a credible source for irrationality"
The problem is that he *IS* rational, and makes a rational argument. Just many people are so hell-bent on attacking the guy that they forget this fact. He bases clear sound and logical arguments.
The problem is that his whole argument is built upon certain premisses that just don't coincide with any reality that I'm aware of. He claims that people "train on GTA to kill cops"? What part about GTA lets me pick up a gun and use it to kill a cop? It may train my behavior, but it doesn't train those skills that I need to shoot a weapon with the accuracy that people like, the Columbine shooters exhibited.
When I loaded up this radio program I was ready to hear some crackpot wizzing away again like all the other crackpots out there. But this guy isn't like that. He's intelligent, and sane. He's just using some fantasy pixie-dust premisses that support his preconceived opinion that artistic violence envokes violence in the audience.
I wonder what he'd have to say about the real Grimm Fairytales... "Of course we started the Crusades, just look at what they were teaching their kids! After a decade of training on stories of knights kill things and wolves eating small children, they had the whole skillset needed to launch a massive compaign to regain the Holy Land!"
Damn, that's hilarious. I can't believe my fingers typed that. Yeah, it's supposed to be "liar".
I don't think it needs to be "opinion" that Jack Thompson is a lawyer. Well, until he gets disbarred.
"... that I haven't restricted myself to just English"
"... that sometimes vie for control over my speech."
"It's not like I spell check..."
See? I can do it, too. In fact, any monkey with a grammar handbook can.
They're NOT calling them "pro-choice" and "anti-choice". They're using "pro-choice" and "anti-abortion".
And I wouldn't mind "pro-choice" and "anti-choice" anyways, because at least it would be more consistent. But then you're laying authenticity to one side, by using their self-defined named, and against the other side, because you're using the opposite of the other person's claim.
Let's get around ALL THE FUCKING BULLSHIT, and call it like it is. There are people for and against abortions, for a myriad of reasons, and not just because of "choice" or "life".
And your opinion about the law is something that can *change*. By declaring a fetus a legally protectable entity, you could make abortion child-abuse resulting in the death of the child.
Yes, the law as it stands now is the right of the woman to PRIVACY in her first trimester (that's all the Supreme Court allowed. Everyone jumped on the band-wagon and extended it though. It's never made it back to the Supreme Court to be validated though, that it would be alright later in the pregnancy.) This later moved into the reason: "She has the CHOICE to do with her body what she wills."
Some interesting tidbits: The law as it is now allows for charging someone of a crime for which the condition has to be that a person has died, if they somehow maliciously or neglegently enact a change upon a pregnant womans body such that her unborn fetus dies. That's right, you can get charged for vehicular manslaughter for hitting a pregnant woman if you cause her pregnancy to terminate, but yet it's perfectly legal if you have her permission to terminate her pregnancy.
I honestly don't care that much about the abortion issue. Both sides are stupid silly about things. Some people want to protect the life of the child, which is admirable, and at least their laws were consistent. And some people want to allow abortions, which yeah, in many cases is good. I think there's a serious health risk in using it as a form of "contraception" though. In many of these cases, people would be getting an abortion SOMEHOW, and that's usually in a dark alley with a coathanger (exaggerating some, but it's defintely not usually a sterile safe environment.)
It wasn't that long ago that CONTRACEPTION itself was illegal.
Look, I'd just like to see pointless abortions stopped. Like, people using it instead of birth control. I've been on the moral high horse before saying that all abortions are wrong, but seriously, there are people who are going to do it ANYWAYS, so we may as well make it safe for them.
Oh yeah, and not hold the other side to rules that you're not applying to yourself, or degrading them just because they believe different than you. And that applies equally well across both sides. So, let's stick to this simple criterium: ABORTION. You're either for or against it. You may have some "moral grounds" upon which you base your argument, but everyone does, so shut up with them. Argue the point at hand. What does Abortion accomplish? What is it used for? Does it add a net benefit or net loss to the society?
Who gives a shit if you think that a baby's life is more important than the mother's choice to carry it, or vice-versa. Let's actually look at the real issue of Abortion and decide if its a good thing apart from any moral implications. As much as anti-abortionists claim moral high ground, so do the pro-abortionists.
So your only comeback is to point out a typo, and a choice of wording that you wouldn't choose yourself?
I mean, I know you have an English degree, but recall, that I haven't restrict myself to just English. I have a few languages rattling around in my head that sometimes via for control over my speech.
It's not like a spell check, or grammar check, or even sometimes re-read my posts before I make them. This isn't a place where formal English speech is require, "ya' got me?"
So, basically, you lampoon my FACTS with "you're stupid because you make typos, hehe, you sux0r, bye bye"
Fuck your self righteous position that English is innately better than all other languages in the world. This is part of the reason why foreigners hate us so much, because we get to their country and say, "You don't speak English? What a fucking joke."
If you have *FACTUAL* content to contribute, please do, I'm willing to listen and hear arguments, but if the best you can come up with is "you made a typo, so you suck", then go fuck yourself.
No, insults can't. Well... this need be clarrified. Only a statement of fact can be considered libelous or slanderous. Thus, if the insult has a statement of fact in it, as in for example: "Jack Thompson is a liar." (This is an example, don't sue me Jack Thompson.) Then you open yourself up for libel, because it can be argued that the statement is intended as a statement of fact, and if it were wrong, then would be libelous/slanderous. (Note: in the US, truth is an absoulte defense to libel/slander, and thus no matter how offense or degrading the statement might be; if it's true, you gotta live with it.)
Now, just add some words to make it obviously a joke, "Jack Thompson is a big fat stupid liar liar pants on fire." You cut yourself free. Or, add information to explicitly state it's an opinion, "In my opinion, Jack Thompson is a lawyer."
But there are few things that are never a statement of fact under US law. These include profane statements. Like: "Jack Thompson is an asshole." Completely protected right from the get go, because it's profane.
So, looking at this stuff. In order to claim libel, you have to establish that Jack Thompson's claim against PA is: not profane, intended as a statement of fact, not true, and damaging to their image.
The point failing here is the "intended as a statement of fact". You can't argue that Jack Thompson intended "idiot" as a statement of fact, but rather as a "semi-profane" insult. Idiot has an exact definition, and a epithetical usage. If he didn't intend it with that exact definition, then it's not libel. And I think it would hard to establish that Jack Thompson did intend to say that the people of Penny Arcade have an IQ low enough to establish the definition of "idiot."
The favorite phrase of me and my friends is: "All I hear is wah!"
You'd have to prove that Jack intended it as "they have an IQ lower than 50", and that this somehow tarnishes their image.
If it's just an insult, then it can't be libel.
YOU can't use the Patriot Act to protect information, only the GOVERNMENT can do that.
;)
Get it straight man
Look, "pro-lifer" isn't on the same level as God. Look, let me lay this out.
Pro-life: Feel that the potential-life that the child might have is more important than the rights of the mother.
Pro-choice: Feel that the rights of the mother outweigh any potential-life that the child might have.
You can label pro-life people in at least 3 different ways: "pro-life", "anti-abortion", "anti-choice".
You can label pro-choice people in at least 3 different ways: "anti-life", "pro-abortion", "pro-choice".
Is it so much to ask, that people represent both sides with a agreeing stature? Either both pro- or both anti-. Don't make up some logical reason why you're showing them opposite unless you're actually drawing a contrast. If they called them "anti-abortion" and "pro-abortion" then there's nothing wrong. If they call them "anti-abortion" and "pro-choice" then they're showing favoritism.
Since I've been taking the position of "in a process report document" passive is necessary, the context would be:
"After the unit was brought into the testing area, it was properly strapped in, and the tests were begun."
Fact is that any setence, active or not will lack this sort of context to know what exactly is intended by the sentence. But this context should help people to reach further into completing this little puzzle. (And you're right, I was missing enough context to make it solvable the first time.)
Awesome problem. Even with the solutions laid out I was all, huh?
Took me some deep thought even with the solution in front of me to figure it out. I suppose everyone just has to find their own way to wrap their brain around the problem.
Well, the real problem here is actually to native English speakers. Many languages have clear and accurate responses to negative questions. Let's take some examples, starting with English, then we'll touch Japanese, then German. All sentences given are grammatically/semantically correct responses for the respective language.
In English, the speaker agrees his "yes/no" response with his sentence. Thus, you use "no" only when you're responding with sentence in the negative.
Did you watch TV? No, I didn't watch TV.
Did you watch TV? Yes, I did watch TV.
Did you not watch TV? No, I didn't watch TV.
Did you not watch TV? Yes, I did watch TV.
In Japanese, the speaker's "hai/iie" response to the affirmation or negation of the question. This matches English for the positive, but is opposite for the negative.
terebi o mitta? iie, minakatta. (Did you watch TV? No, I didn't.)
terebi o mitta? hai, mitta. (Did you watch TV? Yes, I did.)
terebi o minakatta? hai, minakatta. (Did you not watch TV? Yes, I didn't.)
terebi o minakatta? iie, mitta. (Did you not watch TV? No, I did.)
In German, you have two pairs. For positive sentences you use "ja/nein" same as English, but for negative sentences, you have "ja/doch", responding on the affirmation of negation of the question.
Hast du ferngesehen? Nein, ich habe nicht. (Did you watch TV? No, I didn't.)
Hast du ferngesehen? Ja, ich habe. (Did you watch TV? Yes, I did.)
Hast du nicht ferngesehen? Ja, ich habe nicht. (Did you not watch TV? Yes, I didn't.)
Hast du nicht ferngesene? Doch, ich habe. (Did you not watch TV? Wrong, I did.)
This is generally why (at least this is the purpose behind it, even if it were not conciously the reaosn) the English-speaking militaries use a pair like "affirmative/negative" for responses. Because the response is consistent upon the question asked (a la natural Japanese).
Of course, English causes even more pitfalls with even positive questions: "Do you mind if I eat that?" "Yeah, go ahead." Since your response isn't a negative sentence, you say "yes" as per reasons above, even though we all know that "yeah" means, "I do mind if you eat that."
Anyways, the majority of people have problems with negative statements, even in their native language. Few languages actually have sufficiently consistent terms for responses to avoid this abiguity.
This doesn't indicate a change in state. It just indicates that the straps were holding the unit, not that as a matter of the process the unit became strapped in.
Good try though, thought I had you good with that one.
And don't worry about the whole correction stuff... I should have read correctly the first time
Murder is wrong for more than just social stigma. Instead let's take alcohol. The US has tried to ban that before because it's "wrong", and look where that went. It's because it's a social stigma that it's wrong, not because it's inherantly wrong itself.
Reading an entire document in the passive voice does not bother me. Yes, it bothers you, and it bothers many people, that's why you don't use it in English. That simple.
Anything people do to overcompensate for their feelings of inadequecy in writing is bad. Take the vast vocabulary that many people pull out when writing essays in high school and college. This one time, I corrected a girls paper, and she complained that I "took out all her big words." I pointed her to my paper, and said, "you used them wrong, and to point, look at my paper... see any of that crap going on here?"
The idea of process report documents is not to obscure the information. The idea of process report documents is to report what happened, not which employee did what. You said yourself, there are times when the passive voice is warranted. In a process report document, such a voice is necessary to the very core of the purpose of the document.
Since it's apparent that you actually do go back and read comments to your AC posts.
Other languages will die off because they lack the semantic accuracy of English.
WTF? Where did you get that English has a better semantic accuracy than every other language. Do you have some evidence or something? Do you even speak another language than English? You have a degree in English, so it's apparent that you're biased towards English.
But seriously, I speak a handful of different languages, and I've never found a reason to call English superior to any other because of "semantic accuracy".
Yeah, because Lord knows, all those people out there speaking German, and French, and Chinese, and making the same lives as us, and developing technologies just like us... yeah, it would all be better if they spoke English for that "semantic accuracy".
Fuck, get off your English bias. English is more superior in the marketplace than German/French/Chinese, because it's the dominate language of the world's leading edge. No other reason. There is no innate feature of English that makes it better or worse than any other language for any reasaon what so ever. It's all social disposition.
Yeah, I'll agree that from the English perspective, the passive voice is uninteresting and unengaging. Because that is how native speakers percieve it. But there's nothing innate about the passive voice to ground this on. It's just social opinion, which is fine to base style rules upon.
I just prefer people to relate matters accurately rather than perpetuate silly reasons. (Those that lay people feel are logical grounded, but in fact fail to meet evidence. Like the sun orbits around the earth. (note from the perspective of the earth, the sun *does* go around the earth. It does not *orbit* the earth though, which is more meaningful, strict, and interesting.))
If it's something that is socially contructed and socially dictated, and has no innate evidence for it, then social dictate is fine. Like, "women are more beautiful than men." (people would no doubt attempt to prove this, but there exists remote tribes of people where men are considered more beautiful than women, and social roles are almost entirely swapped between the two genders. Given a counter-example, the statement is thus false.)
So, given any grammatical stylistic perscription that people can dictate, there exists a counter-example in at least another language that proves that such a perscription is not necessarily the only logical choice. Thus, perscription fails if it attempts to apply "logic" and "reason" on its rules, rather it should be based upon the etiquette of formal speech. "You do this this way, because that's how we use it in formal English speech." This applies across all perscriptionist rules, and actuall works. Of course, then you get those "rebels" that insist that they do stuff different. Well, you just tell them that it's not socially accepted formal speech, and they need to conform, or they will bring the wrath of non-compliance upon themselves.
Imagine a school clic that would identify itself as "linguistic non-conformists." That'd be funny.
I'm not ending a sentence with a preposition. I'm ending the sentence with an additional word that follows the verb, which just happens to look identical to a preposition. I'm not using the verb: "to strap" and then a preposition of "in" + some location. I'm using the verb "to strap in". Compare: "I strapped in the car." This does *not* mean, "I was strapping, and the location of that strapping was in the car." It means "I took the car, and strapped it in."
This confusion has been propogated by Prescriptionists for no bloody reason, except maybe that Latin didn't do it, or something like that. But fact is that Germanic languages are often known to use seperable and inseperable affixes to their verbs. German and Dutch are most apparent, because they're V2, thus the word "aufsteigen" (to climb up) is generally written together, but then in a sentence it become "ich steige auf." (I climb up.) Here the "preposition" auf is placed at the end of the sentence. So, I hear you "yeah, whatever, this is German, it's not English."
Well, let's move to Swedish, on the other side of the Germanic Language tree, and you'll see that while they don't have the words directly affixed, they are still considiered averbial suffixes. Example: "klättra uppför". (to climb up) Here the verb infinitive is "klättra", and the suffix is "uppför", you can't drop that suffix without changing the semantic meaning of the sentence. It's "Jag klättrar uppför" (I climb up), that's how it's used, and "uppför" is not a preposition at the end of a sentence, it's a suffix to the verb.
Now, while we have all these complex verbal phrases out there like "to strap in" and "to climb up". It's interesting to note that English shows the same features as all of the other Germanic languages: adverbial affixes that look exactly the same as a preposition. It's easily demonstrable that it's the German verbal system. Prescriptionists just don't listen to Linguists though, they listen to their damned style manuals that don't take much more than a surface examination of the language and attempt to dictate reason upon it.
Learning foreign languages you begin to learn that all that crap that Prescriptionists tell you is wrong, is actually done in other languages all around the world, in fact to the perscription of their own language guidelines! So, while English Prescriptionists are telling you "don't use double negatives, because it means the opposite of what you're trying to say," there are major languages out there that "violate" this logic. And when they say "don't end a sentence with a preposition", they neglect evidence shown by other languages that these are not prepositions, they're adverbial affixes to the verb. And when they say "don't split infinitives" they don't know what the hell they're talking about because there isn't a way to put another word between the "b" and "e" in "be", which is the real infinitive. ("I can see." Where's the infinitive in that sentence? "see", not "to see", German and Swedish follow the same rules about when you say "to verb" or "zu verb" or "att verb" respectively, but you don't see them saying that it's part of their infinitive.)
Note, that these three rules are slowly growing out of merit among perscriptionists, because they're starting to realize that hey, linguists actually know what they're talking about, and can make a rational explanation for this feature of natural speech. The only one they keep is double negatives, saying that "agreement of negation should not be done with negative words, but rather with indefinite words, as this is the established formal standard." Which is true.
But you still won't see those elementary school teachers, who are stupid, changing their deeply rooted opinions on this matter.
Correction before I get bashed for this. You are aware that "The windows has been broken for 3 weeks." is passive.
Forget that stuff.
But just by adding more information doesn't necessarily make the passive more justified than without that information.
First, "The window broke" only works because "to break" is a dual-use transitive/intransitive. Not every word in English is like this. "The unit was strapped in." Please make *that* into an active sentence.
Oh, and don't use "someone" or "something", because both of those restrict the actor to either animate, or inanimate, while my sentence doesn't make any such restriction. Also, they create a greater air of uncertainty as to the agent of the sentence. "Someone strapped the unit in." makes it sound like, "I came into the lab, and someone had already strapped the unit in." Not, "As according to the process, the unit was strapped in."
Also, "The window has been broken for 3 weeks." *is* a passive sentence. The past perfect for "to be" (is) is "to have been" (has been). Thus, "I am a programmer." and "I have been a programmer for 3 weeks." Changing the tense of the sentence to make it seem like it's not a passive sentence shouldn't count for making it non-passive.
The passive isn't any less or more ambiguous than every setence that we use in English. It just has a bad rep, because stylistic perscriptionists declare that you should't use it. Meanwhile, in German, the perscriptivists *suggest* the passive, because it's an uncommon usage form that takes the tone of the sentence out of the "everyday".
More accurately to the point. The sentence "Something broke the window." implies that the writer doesn't even know what broke the window. While, "The windows was broken." Indicates that they have an idea of what broke it, but it's not important. And in a process report would indicate that the action was perhaps even part of the process. Compare:
In testing the VeloMatic A, the test unit was placed in the restraint system in front of the window, then as the test concluded, the window was broken.
With:
In testing the VeloMatic A, the test unit was placed in the restraint system in front of the window, then as the test concluded, something broke the window.
There's god damn nothing wrong with the Passive Voice except that it has a stigmatic notion in English. In German, it has a air of respectability to it over the active voice. Thus, in German if you want to sound more respectable, you use the passive more.
I spoke with my Dad on this topic once. He worked on process documents and reports. The idea is that you put everything in the passive, because the agents of the senteces are not to be indicated. You don't write "Bob strapped the VeloMatic A into the restraint system." no. You don't say who did what, it doesn't matter who did what, just that it was done. "The VeloMatic A was strapped into the restraint system."
Careful! The ESRB would revoke your rating, then it would get marked as AO, and your chips could only be sold to people over the age of 18.
Try explaining at 16 to your dad that he need to go buy you that chip because you can't buy it yourself because there's a 1:10000 scale penis on it.
Thats right, because of the restistry, stuff just works. We have installs that just work. We have programs that can talk to eachother, and it just works. Linux, not so much.
/Library directory (requiring root level access) or the ~/Library (requiring ownership level access).
Mac OSX. File based information stored in a regularized library-accessed manner through either the
With that, OSX stuff just works. They have installs that just work (in fact, many times you can just copy the directory over from install media to harddrive, like back in the days of DOS. What to uninstall an app? Just delete it off your harddrive.) They have programs that can talk to each other, and it just works.
Your argument fails because things can "just work" only because you butted enough heads at it. Not because it's actually GOOD, but just because you beat it with enough people and money. Example: See x86.