[lit-ideas] Re: "I said it in Dutch, I said it in German"
- From: karltrogge@xxxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:05:23 +0200
On 18-Jun-09, at 7:14 PM, karltrogge@xxxxxxxx wrote:
On 18-Jun-09, at 1:08 AM, Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:
I never met ANYONE who spoke TWO languages correctly.
A. Perhaps you should get out more often.
and
B. Given the egregious errors in your attempts at other languages on
this list (ESPECIALLY German), how would you KNOW?
I do most humbly beg Mr Speranza's pardon - on re-reading this message
I see that it COULD be taken far more harshly than it is intended.
(Although I have a prejudice against them, I am starting to see why,
in the absence of tone of voice and body language, etc., emoticons may
have their place.)
Remark A) should be appended with a ;-)
By remark B) I simply mean to say:
Assuming that you have met yourself (a rather odd notion; perhaps
worthy of discussion) - if you do not speak (and I'll extend this to
'know') two languages, how can you judge whether someone else can?
The remark about your errors in German was just meant to support a
claim that you, for example, cannot be a judge as to whether someone
speaks both German and English correctly, as your knowledge of German
is insufficient. Since you cannot judge whether someone speaks German
and English correctly, it follows from that that you DO NOT KNOW
whether you know anyone who speaks German and English correctly. From
this it follows that (even though you may be proficient in ALL other
languages - in which case i would like to introduce you to yourself as
a further counter to your claim ;-) - and have never met anyone who
spoke any two of THOSE correctly) you do not and cannot know whether
you have met anyone who speaks two languages correctly (whether you
get out more or not ;-)).
Once again, my apologies for sending an e-mail without recognizing
that it could possible be taken as offensive (even though no offense
was intended).
Unfortunately this makes my third message of the day - so my remarks
on Mr Speranza's remarks on Quine's METHODS OF LOGIC will have to go
unposted. Perhaps in the meantime Mr Spreanza would like to re-read
it and rephrase his remarks about Quine's opinion of the existential
quantifier. (In his haste I think he has come off the rails there.)
Anyone else see the problem?
(We have not included artificial languages in our discussion of
linguistic ability. Here I am sure many subscribers to this list are
multilingual. I know - and can produce documentary evidence upon
request - that I am.)
Karl Trogge
Hamburg
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