Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)
by khedoros on Monday July 04, 2016 @01:23PM
(#12031906)
What I'm saying is that you took the strongest possible interpretation and knocked it down as a strawman. If there are several possible interpretations of someone's argument, and one of them is obviously flawed, then it's not very generous (or constructive, IMO) to attack the flawed interpretation.
Re:Languages: Why we must save dying tongues (2014)
by Nadya on Tuesday July 05, 2016 @07:56PM
(#12040348)
You speak of the principle of charity [0]. Something that has long vanished on many internet forums, where people are quick to take the most absurd and least likely interpretation of a statement and argue against it. Especially when being pedantic about certain word phrasing or word choices (to which the OP would often respond with "You know what I meant.")
My best friend is Australian, the idioms are often nonsensical or require a bit of thinking due to being a variant of an idiom I'm familiar with. e.g "a roo loose in the top paddock"
Nothing. What's controversial is equating "other places use the language slightly differently, and it can take some time to become accustomed to the differences" with "it takes a few weeks of practice to intelligibly [sic] understand someone from another place".
The first of those, yours, is a very weak claim. The second is a very strong one.
I said "this is dramatically overstated" and you're trying to contradict me by saying that a much weaker version of the claim is true. Yes, it is, that's what "overstated" means.