If you want X, you know where to find it (was Re: do...until wisdom needed...)

[Douglas Alan]

"Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com> writes:

> No "taunting" involved -- I dived into it right after you seriously
> insulted Steve Holden by impugning his honesty,

I did no such thing.  I said, "Why not be honest: it's a wart on the
language."  In my dialect of English this means the same thing as,
"Let's be honest: it's a wart on the language."  Or, "Why kid
ourselves: it's a wart on the language."  Or, "If we look at the
issue without bias, it's a wart on the language."

In no way did I mean to imply that Mr. Holden was lying or trying to
mislead anyone.  In my dialect of English the meaning would be clear
and I've already clarified that it was not my intent to impugn the
honesty of Mr. Holden.  Yet you seem to believe that it was my intent
to insult him.  Are you accusing me of lying?

Perhaps you and Mr. Holden speak some dialect of English with which I
am quite unfamiliar, and in which the statement I made could be
misinterpreted.  If this is the case, then I am very sorry for the
misunderstanding.  If I had known ahead of time about the rather
different language that you two speak, I would have phrased things
differently.

Contra to what you say, except in cases where I was very clearly
insulted first, I have not uttered sentences that as speech acts were
insults to anyone here.  Such speech acts would require my intention
to insult.

More (but not on this topic) after I finish giving a talk today on
Chambers et. al.'s MultiJava.

|>oug