Toby wrote: "English is not the property of English speakers". You might well argue that not all English speakers live in the US and the British Commonwealth
Yea I meant "property of "native" English speakers. Its a mandatory 2nd language around the world, and yadda....
RK:Pseudo-academic, pseudo-egalitarian nonsense. That's the same kind of talk that has damaged the education of much of the inner-city youth in America. Only in the last decade have educators finally had the nerve to attack this point of view, and to correct the course that our schools were making.
Toby:Of course I disagree with what seems to be another implict premise, that failing to adopt, or even know, the trappings of mainstream society is necessarily a sign of "poor education".
Brilliant. Toby is cutting through the crap like a snowplow today.
Toby: Despite the arguments over theoretical matters and value judgements, it's not clear to me that *any* of us would produce different
encyclopædias.
Yeah, I did go off a bit - and in retrospect, I regret my haste - Jay's announcement framed essentially "Im in an Edit war with a Chinese guy who cant write English." As "lets make a point of singling out foreigners who cant write English like the Queen does." A very hasty and unthought response - that was perhaps better expressed as a question of intent. Apo.... to James, and even Robert.
We all do have to clean up our points - thank you Dan, Toby, others for being bearers of the torch...
SM