Modifying Class Object

[Stephen Hansen]

On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 12:15 AM, Steve Howell <showell30 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Feb 10, 6:16 am, Steven D'Aprano <st... at REMOVE-THIS-
> cybersource.com.au> wrote:
> >
> > Alf, although your English in this forum has been excellent so far, I
> > understand you are Norwegian, so it is possible that you aren't a native
> > English speaker and possibly unaware that quotation marks are sometimes
> > ambiguous in English.
> >
> > While it is true that quoted text is officially meant to indicate a
> > direct quote, it is also commonly used in informal text to indicate a
> > paraphrase. (There are other uses as well, but they don't concern us
> now.)
> >
> > Unfortunately, this means that in informal discussions like this it is
> > sometimes difficult to distinguish a direct quote from a paraphrase,
> > except by context. In context, as a native speaker, I can assure you that
> > Stephen Hansen's use of quotation marks is a paraphrase and not meant to
> > be read as a direct quote.
>
> As another native speaker of English, I can assure Alf that using
> quotation marks in a paraphrase in written English is actually
> strictly admonished against in some English speaking countries.  At
> least according to my English teachers.  To the extent that many
> people on the Internet don't speak English natively, I think the most
> conservative and reasonable convention applies--use quotes to quote
> directly; if you're not quoting directly, omit quotes and make clear
> the fact that you are paraphrasing.
>
> Which isn't to say we don't all make mistakes.
>
> I have no idea about what Stephen Hanson said.  Most misattributions
> are actually paraphrases, whether they be in quotes or not.



Well, no, I have to stand in my defense at this point. Given the context of
the communication medium, an actual "quote"  has IMHO a clearly defined
context. It is lines, unchanged and unedited, prepended with a certain
appropriate set of characters, and clearly cited with some variation of
something like "On <date>, Someone said:"

A quote, in context, is an attempt to directly reference another
individual's words as they spoke them.

Any alteration of such words, any adjustment of such words to your own end,
is dishonest.

What I did was say something like this paragraph (with no quote characters
before it):

   And then you hand-waved my arguments with a response of, "this that blah
bleh"

Minus the indention.

There was IMHO, NO misattribution, NO reasonable assumption that I specified
actual or explicit words of Alf or anyone else. There MAY be an argument
someone can make claiming my statement wasn't clear, but to declare it is a
deliberate /lie/ is another thing entirely.

There is a difference between using quote marks and making an actual
quotation-- a quotation requires a citation-- and in informal discourse use
of quote marks to represent clear paraphrasing of the interpretation of
position is valid, imho. In a formal paper or thesis, I'd use a different
format. But this is not formal. In context that statement can not possibly
be reasonable considered an actual quotation, even with quote marks.

And I'm responding because: yes, I'm finding this "You are a liar." response
particularly personally offensive. I should get over it. I'm just used to
people disagreeing with me. Dismissing me as a liar is something new.

--S
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