Wasn't that something to be proud of?

[tonbei]

I have a question about the following sentences from a novel.

Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of? "The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation left him like the air released from a toy balloon.
("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)

context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into Columbia of South America for a secret operation to damage refinery sites of coka leaves placed in forests.
2) A squad with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and killed its workers.
3) Chaves bent down to look into the man he had just shot down and found he was just a peasant, who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves until before then.

question: about "Wasn't that something to be proud of?" or usage of "negative question"
"Was that something to be proud of?" would be straight and clear, so easy to understand, anticipating a negative answer in himself as a self-questioner doubtful of what he had done just then: No, it can't be what I will be proud of.
On the other hand, that quoted negative question seems to anticipate an affirmative answer from himself.
What effect is aimed at with this usage? Someone who asked himself this way, must deny more strongly if he wants to negate it.

1) "Is this something to be proud of? No, It's not."
2) "Isn't this something to be proud of? No, it can never be."

So, 2) must be denied more strongly than 1) when he want to answer this self-question negatively.
Is this right?

[Peter Moylan]

There is more than one way to interpret this, so any answer has to be a
guess. My feeling, though, is that the statement that "the exhilaration
... left him" suggests that Chavez went through a change of feelings. To
begin with, he had successfully carried out the raid, and that was
something to be proud of. Then he had a closer look at the man he had
killed, and probably saw it as a pointless killing. So, as I see it, he
was first proud, and then his pride was punctured.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Peter T. Daniels]

We don't know (from the information provided) whether Chavez is a
thoughtful man (a main character or a walk-on), so it's also possible
that he realized as soon as he had carried out his orders it had been
a shameful thing to do. (Clearly it was a mistake. "We had to destroy
the village in order to save it.")

[tonbei]

> We don't know (from the information provided) whether Chavez is a
> thoughtful man (a main character or a walk-on), so it's also possible
> that he realized as soon as he had carried out his orders it had been
> a shameful thing to do. (Clearly it was a mistake. "We had to destroy
> the village in order to save it.")

Chavez is a good soldier, so selected for this operation. And a main character in this chapter.
When the squad attacked the refinery site, they saw about ten men working there as guards or related to a drug business. When Chavez took one of them out, he realised that the man was a peasant working in a refinery site for an extra income，from his looks. Chavez also came from peasantry before entering the military.

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 9:50:48 PM UTC-7, tonbei wrote:
> I have a question about the following sentences from a novel.
>
> Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of? "The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation left him like the air released from a toy balloon.
> ("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)
>
> context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into Columbia of South America for a secret operation to damage refinery sites of coka leaves placed in forests.
> 2) A squad with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and killed its workers.
> 3) Chaves bent down to look into the man he had just shot down and found he was just a peasant, who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves until before then.
>

(snip)

I think it has been four or five decades since I decided Tom Clancy was a hack, and I wasn't ever going to read him again.
Therefore I will not be able to help you.

bill

[Richard Heathfield]

Clancy's first novel was published in 1984.

2022 - 1984 = 38

38 < 40

=>

You are full of BS

> Therefore I will not be able to help you.

I don't suppose anyone will be too upset about that.

You are long overdue for my killfile.

*plink*

--
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

[Snidely]

Richard Heathfield explained :

Sheesh.

-d

--
The presence of this syntax results from the fact that SQLite is really
a Tcl extension that has escaped into the wild.
<http://www.sqlite.org/lang_expr.html>

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 02.10.2022 kl. 10.55 skrev Snidely:

>> You are long overdue for my killfile.

>> *plink*

> Sheesh.

I considered writing:

It is sooo last century to plonk publicly.

but I decided not to.

--
Bertel

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Sun, 02 Oct 2022 01:55:01 -0700
Snidely <snide...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Richard Heathfield explained :
> > On 02/10/2022 3:58 am, bil...@shaw.ca wrote:
> >> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 9:50:48 PM UTC-7, tonbei wrote:

[extract from a Tom Clancy novel, I presume]

> >> I think it has been four or five decades since I decided Tom Clancy was a
> >> hack, and I wasn't ever going to read him again.
> >
> > Clancy's first novel was published in 1984.
> >
> > 2022 - 1984 = 38
> >
> > 38 < 40
> >
> > =>
> >
> > You are full of BS

Well that's a leap!

> >
> >> Therefore I will not be able to help you.
> >
> > I don't suppose anyone will be too upset about that.
> >
> > You are long overdue for my killfile.
> >
> > *plink*
>
> Sheesh.
>

[Raises left eyebrow]

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[occam]

Yet you did.

(Note RH 'plink'ed, not 'plonk'ed. Maybe 'plink' is the new 'plonk'.)

[occam]

On 02/10/2022 11:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

> [Raises left eyebrow]

You must be left-handed.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

It's only logical

https://emojipedia.org/face-with-raised-eyebrow/

[Athel Cornish-Bowden]

Jan Lodder has expressed a similar opinion, but I'm not sure that it's
generally agreed.

Mark Brader plonked me (for failing to agree with his bossy insistence
that "Caucasian" meant what he wanted it to mean) he announced it to
the world. When I plonked him in response I followed his example.
Childish, I suppose, but none of us are as adult as we might wish in
all our dealings. On the rare occasions when I see something he's
written quoted I don't get the impression that I've missed anything
significant.


--
Athel -- French and British, living mainly in England until 1987.

[Silvano]

occam hat am 02.10.2022 um 11:41 geschrieben:

> (Note RH 'plink'ed, not 'plonk'ed. Maybe 'plink' is the new 'plonk'.)

Is there any difference? TIA for any explanation.

[Peter Moylan]

I could hazard a guess, but experience suggests that I don't really
understand Richard's mind. I suggest that you put it down to a personal
quirk.

I'm a little surprised, anyway, because Bill strikes me as the sort of
person who never gets plonked by anyone. If we were going to vote on
some sort of plonkability index - but I don't suggest that we do - I can
think of a lot of people who would be far higher on the list.

[Richard Heathfield]

On 02/10/2022 10:41 am, occam wrote:
> On 02/10/2022 11:38, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>> Den 02.10.2022 kl. 10.55 skrev Snidely:
>>
>>>> You are long overdue for my killfile.
>>
>>>> *plink*
>>
>>> Sheesh.
>>
>> I considered writing:
>>
>>       It is sooo last century to plonk publicly.
>>
>> but I decided not to.

<shrug>

>
> Yet you did.

Quite so.

> (Note RH 'plink'ed, not 'plonk'ed. Maybe 'plink' is the new 'plonk'.)

Not /that/ new. I think my first plink was back in the 20th century.

Plinkers aren't weighty enough to make a full, rich, round
`plonk' sound when they land.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 5:50:26 AM UTC-6, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 02/10/22 22:29, Silvano wrote:
> > occam hat am 02.10.2022 um 11:41 geschrieben:
> >
> >> (Note RH 'plink'ed, not 'plonk'ed. Maybe 'plink' is the new
> >> 'plonk'.)
> >
> > Is there any difference? TIA for any explanation.

> I could hazard a guess, but experience suggests that I don't really
> understand Richard's mind. I suggest that you put it down to a personal
> quirk.

I'd guess that either it was a typo, or he wanted some variety, or he has
an answer ready and wanted to be asked.

> I'm a little surprised, anyway, because Bill strikes me as the sort of
> person who never gets plonked by anyone. If we were going to vote on
> some sort of plonkability index - but I don't suggest that we do - I can
> think of a lot of people who would be far higher on the list.

I agree.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 02.10.2022 kl. 13.22 skrev Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> Mark Brader plonked me (for failing to agree with his bossy insistence
> that "Caucasian" meant what he wanted it to mean) he announced it to the
> world. When I plonked him in response I followed his example.

I remember now that I have seen some previous plonks, but it's been
years since I stopped announcing mine. The reason is that I found that
the situation had become stable: Nobody would change their behaviour no
matter how many plonks they were subjected to.

--
Bertel

[Richard Heathfield]

On 02/10/2022 12:50 pm, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 02/10/22 22:29, Silvano wrote:
>> occam hat am 02.10.2022 um 11:41 geschrieben:
>>
>>> (Note RH 'plink'ed, not 'plonk'ed. Maybe 'plink' is the new
>>> 'plonk'.)
>>
>> Is there any difference? TIA for any explanation.
>
> I could hazard a guess, but experience suggests that I don't really
> understand Richard's mind.

I have now explained it elsethread, so you can compare your
hazard with the actual explanation and see how close you got.

> I'm a little surprised, anyway, because Bill strikes me as the
> sort of
> person who never gets plonked by anyone.

It was the combination of arrogance and ignorance that did it -
to paraphrase, `I decided Tom Clancy was a shit writer two years
before he published his first novel'.

> If we were going to vote on
> some sort of plonkability index - but I don't suggest that we do
> - I can
> think of a lot of people who would be far higher on the list.

I think I've already punted them.

[occam]

On 02/10/2022 13:59, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 02/10/2022 10:41 am, occam wrote:
>> On 02/10/2022 11:38, Bertel Lund Hansen wrote:
>>> Den 02.10.2022 kl. 10.55 skrev Snidely:
>>>
>>>>> You are long overdue for my killfile.
>>>
>>>>> *plink*
>>>
>>>> Sheesh.
>>>
>>> I considered writing:
>>>
>>>        It is sooo last century to plonk publicly.
>>>
>>> but I decided not to.
>
> <shrug>
>
>>
>> Yet you did.
>
> Quite so.
>
>> (Note RH 'plink'ed, not 'plonk'ed. Maybe 'plink' is the new 'plonk'.)
>
> Not /that/ new. I think my first plink was back in the 20th century.
>
> Plinkers aren't weighty enough to make a full, rich, round `plonk' sound
> when they land.
>

Surely not 'plinkers'. You are the 'plinker' in this instance. The
'plinked' is the object of your action.

Perhaps you do not want to issue a 'plonk' so as not to labelled a plonker?

[occam]

On 02/10/2022 12:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 11:43:24 +0200
> occam <oc...@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>
>> On 02/10/2022 11:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>>
>>> [Raises left eyebrow]
>>
>> You must be left-handed.
>
> It's only logical
>
> https://emojipedia.org/face-with-raised-eyebrow/
>

Not as logical as you think. I'll see your emojis, and I'll raise you a
Dr. Spock. Who would you say is the more logical? (The correct answer is
Spock.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vrXKlO2Jbw

[CDB]

[Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards

who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of?
"The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation
left him like the air released from a toy balloon. ("Clear and

Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)]

The question expcts "yes" as an answer, but Chavez was asking it to
himself ironically. He has lost the exhilaration that combat brought
him, and regrets what he has done.

[Ken Blake]

So do I.

[Ken Blake]

On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 04:40:54 +0100, Richard Heathfield
<r...@cpax.org.uk> wrote:

>On 02/10/2022 3:58 am, bil...@shaw.ca wrote:
>> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 9:50:48 PM UTC-7, tonbei wrote:
>>> I have a question about the following sentences from a novel.
>>>
>>> Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of? "The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation left him like the air released from a toy balloon.
>>> ("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)
>>>
>>> context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into Columbia of South America for a secret operation to damage refinery sites of coka leaves placed in forests.
>>> 2) A squad with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and killed its workers.
>>> 3) Chaves bent down to look into the man he had just shot down and found he was just a peasant, who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves until before then.
>>>
>> (snip)
>>
>> I think it has been four or five decades since I decided Tom Clancy was a hack, and I wasn't ever going to read him again.
>
>Clancy's first novel was published in 1984.
>
>2022 - 1984 = 38
>
>38 < 40

When someone says "I think it has been..." and says "four or five
decades," using "or" rather than stating a specific number, he's
obviously making an approximation. Yes, he could have been more
accurate, but it wasn't necessary. His approximation was good enough
to make the point he wanted to make.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 4:55:08 AM UTC-4, snide...@gmail.com wrote:
> Richard Heathfield explained :
> > On 02/10/2022 3:58 am, bil...@shaw.ca wrote:
> >> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 9:50:48 PM UTC-7, tonbei wrote:
> >>> I have a question about the following sentences from a novel.
> >>>
> >>> Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards who
> >>> danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of? "The
> >>> exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation left him
> >>> like the air released from a toy balloon.
> >>> ("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)
> >>>
> >>> context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into Columbia of South
> >>> America for a secret operation to damage refinery sites of coka leaves
> >>> placed in forests.
> >>> 2) A squad with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and
> >>> killed its workers.
> >>> 3) Chaves bent down to look into the man he had just shot down and found
> >>> he was just a peasant, who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves
> >>> until before then.
> >>>
> >> (snip)
> >>
> >> I think it has been four or five decades since I decided Tom Clancy was a
> >> hack, and I wasn't ever going to read him again.

I've never so much as picked up a Clancy book. but I could provisionally
advise tonbei.

> > Clancy's first novel was published in 1984.
> > 2022 - 1984 = 38
> > 38 < 40
> > =>
> > You are full of BS
> >> Therefore I will not be able to help you.
> > I don't suppose anyone will be too upset about that.
> > You are long overdue for my killfile.
> > *plink*
>
> Sheesh.

'S ok. The fewer messages Heathfield sees, the fewer he'll
respond to.

("plink"??)

[Peter T. Daniels]

It might simply be a typo.

[Peter T. Daniels]

Dr. Spock's *Baby and Child Care* was the best-selling book
in the 1950s if not longer.

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vrXKlO2Jbw

I believe you were thinking of Mr. Spock, a television character
that took over Leonard Nimoy's life.

[Jerry Friedman]

Or it's a remnant of him trying to convince himself that he'd done a good
thing.

--
Jerry Friedman

[occam]

Yes, correct for once. Do I take it you clicked on an unknown link, at
long last?

[Peter T. Daniels]

What the bloody hell?

No American who grew up in the 1950s needs any reminder of
who Dr. Benjamin Spock or Mr. Spock was.

I certainly did not click on your unidentified Utube link.

I suppose I should regret providing information on two philosophers
that you might find it interesting and even profitable to read before
telepathy becomes available.

But anyone who refers to the Star Trek character as "Dr. Spock"
has assimilated a prominent aspect of 1950s American culture.

[Richard Heathfield]

On 02/10/2022 5:01 pm, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 04:40:54 +0100, Richard Heathfield
> <r...@cpax.org.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 02/10/2022 3:58 am, bil...@shaw.ca wrote:
>>> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 9:50:48 PM UTC-7, tonbei wrote:
>>>> I have a question about the following sentences from a novel.
>>>>
>>>> Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of? "The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation left him like the air released from a toy balloon.
>>>> ("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)
>>>>
>>>> context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into Columbia of South America for a secret operation to damage refinery sites of coka leaves placed in forests.
>>>> 2) A squad with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and killed its workers.
>>>> 3) Chaves bent down to look into the man he had just shot down and found he was just a peasant, who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves until before then.
>>>>
>>> (snip)
>>>
>>> I think it has been four or five decades since I decided Tom Clancy was a hack, and I wasn't ever going to read him again.
>>
>> Clancy's first novel was published in 1984.
>>
>> 2022 - 1984 = 38
>>
>> 38 < 40
>
>
> When someone says "I think it has been..."

When someone follows that up with "I decided [a then unpublished
author] was a hack", he severely weakens his claim on charitable
interpretations.

[Sam Plusnet]

My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble by
pretending to be RH.
As a person well known for 'robust' views - and ways of expressing them,
I didn't expect him to be precious about the use of a rough
approximation for a long time period.

Yer lives and learns.

--
Sam Plusnet

[Mark Brader]

Athel Cornish-Bowden:

> Mark Brader plonked me (for failing to agree with his bossy

> insistence that "Caucasian" meant what he wanted it to mean)...

In 2019 Athel was surprised to see me responding to one of his
postings, and I explained:

| If I did [plonk him], then maybe Athel got pardoned through my
| forgetfulness combined with that of the computer. About 5 months
| of my killfile updates and records of outgoing postings were lost
| in a disk crash last month.

I am therefore unable to correct his synopsis of the reason why
I did so, but I find it hard to believe.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Mark is probably right about something,
m...@vex.net | but I forget what" -- Rayan Zachariassen

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Sam Plusnet]

He doesn't like Clancy's writing.
Do you feel that there are specific areas where 'De gustibus non est
disputandum' should not apply?

--
Sam Plusnet

[Paul Wolff]

On Sun, 2 Oct 2022, at 13:29:27, Silvano posted:

>occam hat am 02.10.2022 um 11:41 geschrieben:
>
>> (Note RH 'plink'ed, not 'plonk'ed. Maybe 'plink' is the new 'plonk'.)
>
>Is there any difference? TIA for any explanation.

Strong verb of the day: plink, plank, plonked.
--
Paul

[Richard Heathfield]

There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a
writer was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read
a single word that writer had written.

> Yer lives and learns.

If I screw up, I take my lumps. I neither expect nor receive a
free pass. Neither do you.

So why should Bill?

[Richard Heathfield]

Evidently.

> Do you feel that there are specific areas where 'De gustibus non
> est disputandum' should not apply?

Certainly not. There are plenty of writers I don't like, after
all. But I don't think that's sufficient grounds for me to
describe them as "hacks".

Other people are of course free to use the word "hack" more
loosely than I do, because free speech; but similarly I am free
to remove such people's articles from my feed because freedom of
association.

[Mark Brader]

Richard Heathfield:

> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a
> writer was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read
> a single word that writer had written.

The arrogance here appears to be entirely on Richard's side.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "Men! Give them enough rope and they'll dig
m...@vex.net | their own grave." -- EARTH GIRLS ARE EASY

[Richard Heathfield]

On 02/10/2022 10:39 pm, Mark Brader wrote:
> Richard Heathfield:
>> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
>> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a
>> writer was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read
>> a single word that writer had written.
>
> The arrogance here appears to be entirely on Richard's side.

I'm sorry you think so, and obviously I disagree, but perhaps you
would be prepared to explain why you think so? After all, I could
be mistaken.

[Peter Moylan]

<like>

[Peter Moylan]

On 02/10/22 21:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 11:43:24 +0200 occam <oc...@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>
>> On 02/10/2022 11:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>>
>>> [Raises left eyebrow]
>>
>> You must be left-handed.
>
> It's only logical
>
> https://emojipedia.org/face-with-raised-eyebrow/

As a right-handed person, I find it far easier to raise my right eyebrow.

[Tony Cooper]

On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 21:15:32 +0100, Richard Heathfield

<r...@cpax.org.uk> wrote:

>On 02/10/2022 5:01 pm, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 04:40:54 +0100, Richard Heathfield
>> <r...@cpax.org.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> On 02/10/2022 3:58 am, bil...@shaw.ca wrote:
>>>> On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 9:50:48 PM UTC-7, tonbei wrote:
>>>>> I have a question about the following sentences from a novel.
>>>>>
>>>>> Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of? "The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation left him like the air released from a toy balloon.
>>>>> ("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)
>>>>>
>>>>> context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into Columbia of South America for a secret operation to damage refinery sites of coka leaves placed in forests.
>>>>> 2) A squad with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and killed its workers.
>>>>> 3) Chaves bent down to look into the man he had just shot down and found he was just a peasant, who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves until before then.
>>>>>
>>>> (snip)
>>>>
>>>> I think it has been four or five decades since I decided Tom Clancy was a hack, and I wasn't ever going to read him again.
>>>
>>> Clancy's first novel was published in 1984.
>>>
>>> 2022 - 1984 = 38
>>>
>>> 38 < 40
>>
>>
>> When someone says "I think it has been..."
>
>When someone follows that up with "I decided [a then unpublished
>author] was a hack", he severely weakens his claim on charitable
>interpretations.

I read "The Hunt for the Red October" and found it enthralling and one
of the best reads of 1984.

I eagerly bought "Patriot Games" in 1987 and decided, about halfway
through it, that Clancy is a one-trick pony. I don't think I need to
defend my 1987 decision, or that Bill needs to defend his. What he
and I are expressing is opinion. We are lowering the boom on Clancy.

--

Tony Cooper - Orlando Florida

I read and post to this group as a form of entertainment.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 02-Oct-22 22:23, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 02/10/2022 9:57 pm, Sam Plusnet wrote:

>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble by
>> pretending to be RH.
>> As a person well known for 'robust' views - and ways of expressing
>> them, I didn't expect him to be precious about the use of a rough
>> approximation for a long time period.
>
> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the arrogant,
> ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a writer was a hack at a
> time when he could not possibly have read a single word that writer had
> written.

So you don't accept the use of a "rough approximation" here?

That lack of precision seems to be your justification for some pretty
harsh words. Other than that, it all boils down to a difference in
opinion about the value of Clancy's work.
If you and Bill compared notes I'm certain there will be some writers
that he values and you dislike.

--
Sam Plusnet

[Snidely]

Peter Moylan speculated:

> On 02/10/22 21:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>> On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 11:43:24 +0200 occam <oc...@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>>
>>> On 02/10/2022 11:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>>>
>>>> [Raises left eyebrow]
>>>
>>> You must be left-handed.
>>
>> It's only logical
>>
>> https://emojipedia.org/face-with-raised-eyebrow/
>
> As a right-handed person, I find it far easier to raise my right eyebrow.

I am right-handed, but I raise my left eyebrow or both eyebrows. I
cannot wiggle my ears.

/dps

--
"That’s where I end with this kind of conversation: Language is
crucial, and yet not the answer."
Jonathan Rosa, sociocultural and linguistic anthropologist,
Stanford.,2020

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 03.10.2022 kl. 06.57 skrev Snidely:

>> As a right-handed person, I find it far easier to raise my right eyebrow.

I am right-handed, but I can only raise both or none of my eyebrows. But
then I can use my left hand almost as well as my right hand.

> I am right-handed, but I raise my left eyebrow or both eyebrows.  I
> cannot wiggle my ears.

I can wiggle my ears, and I can shake my eyes. I can turn my tongue
sideways, but only to one side. And I can fold it into a tube.

--
Bertel

[Richard Heathfield]

On 03/10/2022 3:12 am, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> On 02-Oct-22 22:23, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> On 02/10/2022 9:57 pm, Sam Plusnet wrote:
>
>>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble
>>> by pretending to be RH.
>>> As a person well known for 'robust' views - and ways of
>>> expressing them, I didn't expect him to be precious about the
>>> use of a rough approximation for a long time period.
>>
>> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
>> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a
>> writer was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have
>> read a single word that writer had written.
>
> So you don't accept the use of a "rough approximation" here?
>
> That lack of precision seems to be your justification for some
> pretty harsh words.

You don't think "hack" is pretty harsh, then?

> Other than that, it all boils down to a
> difference in opinion about the value of Clancy's work.
> If you and Bill compared notes I'm certain there will be some
> writers that he values and you dislike.

No doubt, but I won't dismiss the authors I dislike as "hacks" on
the basis of an opinion formed four or five decades ago before
they'd written any actual books.

[tonbei]

My context may not have been enough.
Their special operation was intended as a response to the FBI director killed when he was visiting Bogota, Columbia. That killing was done by a drug-syndicate as a response to U.S. catching airplanes carrying drugs over the Caribbean sea. So, Chevaz, aware of this, must have a sense of mission to justify his act.

I guess, he was between that that sense of mission and that fact that he had taken out a peasant, not a trained fighter. Chevaz himself came from peasantry, before entering the military.

[bil...@shaw.ca]

On Sunday, October 2, 2022 at 11:27:34 PM UTC-7, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 03/10/2022 3:12 am, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> > On 02-Oct-22 22:23, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> >> On 02/10/2022 9:57 pm, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> >
> >>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble
> >>> by pretending to be RH.
> >>> As a person well known for 'robust' views - and ways of
> >>> expressing them, I didn't expect him to be precious about the
> >>> use of a rough approximation for a long time period.
> >>
> >> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
> >> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a
> >> writer was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have
> >> read a single word that writer had written.
> >
> > So you don't accept the use of a "rough approximation" here?
> >
> > That lack of precision seems to be your justification for some
> > pretty harsh words.
> You don't think "hack" is pretty harsh, then?
> > Other than that, it all boils down to a
> > difference in opinion about the value of Clancy's work.
> > If you and Bill compared notes I'm certain there will be some
> > writers that he values and you dislike.

> No doubt, but I won't dismiss the authors I dislike as "hacks" on
> the basis of an opinion formed four or five decades ago before
> they'd written any actual books.

As you might have guessed if you'd cared to, the 40 years was an
approximation. In fact, he published his first novel -- The Hunt for
Red October -- which I read and which helped form my opinion of
Clancy, 38 years ago.

Like much of his work, it was, in my view, hackneyed Cold War fare
that lacked, again in my view, the charm and atmosphere of John
le Carré's earlier spy novels.

bill

[tonbei]

My image of Tom Clancy is that he is conservative. In his stories, FBI is right, and CIA right.
Jack Ryan, a regular in his works, is a right husband, with a good wife and good friends. It's not imaginable for them to do an unfaithful act on each other. They're living in their own perfect world, threats coming from outside, not inside.

[occam]

Which side? Clockwise (right) or anti-clockwise (left)?

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 03.10.2022 kl. 09.15 skrev occam:

>> I can turn my tongue
>> sideways, but only to one side.

> Which side? Clockwise (right) or anti-clockwise (left)?

Anti-clockwise.

I've been told that this is something that you cannot change through
practice and that it is hereditary.

--
Bertel

[occam]

On 02/10/2022 22:58, Mark Brader wrote:
> Athel Cornish-Bowden:
>> Mark Brader plonked me (for failing to agree with his bossy
>> insistence that "Caucasian" meant what he wanted it to mean)...
>
> In 2019 Athel was surprised to see me responding to one of his
> postings, and I explained:
>
> | If I did [plonk him], then maybe Athel got pardoned through my
> | forgetfulness combined with that of the computer. About 5 months
> | of my killfile updates and records of outgoing postings were lost
> | in a disk crash last month.
>
> I am therefore unable to correct his synopsis of the reason why
> I did so, but I find it hard to believe.

I don't. I have established to my satisfaction that you (MB) do not know
the true meaning of 'plonk'. I pointed this out to you after you plonked
me for a second (or was it third?) time. I believe the key phrase in my
response was that you were a habitual plonker. (I refer you to the BrE
meaning of a plonker.)

[occam]

Do you think the direction has something to do with your being a
(predominantly) right-handed person?

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 03.10.2022 kl. 09.29 skrev occam:

> Do you think the direction has something to do with your being a
> (predominantly) right-handed person?

I have not thought about that. My guess is no.

My little sister who is lefthanded (forced to write with her right hand
- not too difficult for her) can do all sorts of things with her tongue.
She can turn it to either side, she can roll it to a tube both up and
down, and she can touch the back of her tongue with the tip.

--
Bertel

[Paul Wolff]

On Mon, 3 Oct 2022, at 11:28:39, Peter Moylan posted:

>On 02/10/22 21:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>> On Sun, 2 Oct 2022 11:43:24 +0200 occam <oc...@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>>
>>> On 02/10/2022 11:40, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>>>
>>>> [Raises left eyebrow]
>>>
>>> You must be left-handed.
>>
>> It's only logical
>>
>> https://emojipedia.org/face-with-raised-eyebrow/
>
>As a right-handed person, I find it far easier to raise my right eyebrow.
>

I had some dental work done the other day, upper right molar as it
happened, and some while after I thought the anaesthetic had worn off, I
found I could only flare my left nostril, and not my right. A one-sided
sneer is not my normal way.
Oh, and I'm right-handed. And can now sneer and snort bilaterally again.
--
Paul

[Tony Cooper]

I would also slot Clancy in the "hack" writer group, but for his
novels that followed "The Hunt for the Red October". THftRE was, in
my opinion, a well-written and can't-put-it-down novel.

He was an insurance agent when he wrote that book, and no one was able
to understand how he could write such a technically almost-flawless
book on a subject in which he had no experience or exposure to. As a
novel, it was highly complimented and well reviewed.

When "hack" is used to describe a writer, the meaning I take is that
the author has one basic plot and writes multiple novels using that
same plot but changes only a few characters and minor plot points.
The reader sometimes feels he's already read the book even though he
hasn't, but has read previous books by that author.

[CDB]

On 10/2/2022 5:00 PM, Sam Plusnet wrote:
> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> Ken Blake wrote:
>>> Richard Heathfield <r...@cpax.org.uk> wrote:

"De gustibus ain't what dey used to be."

[CDB]

On 10/2/2022 12:14 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> CDB wrote:
>> tonbei wrote:

>>>> We don't know (from the information provided) whether Chavez is
>>>> a thoughtful man (a main character or a walk-on), so it's also
>>>> possible that he realized as soon as he had carried out his
>>>> orders it had been a shameful thing to do. (Clearly it was a
>>>> mistake. "We had to destroy the village in order to save it.")

>>> Chavez is a good soldier, so selected for this operation. And a
>>> main character in this chapter. When the squad attacked the
>>> refinery site, they saw about ten men working there as guards or
>>> related to a drug business. When Chavez took one of them out, he
>>> realised that the man was a peasant working in a refinery site
>>> for an extra income，from his looks. Chavez also came from
>>> peasantry before entering the military.

>> [Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards

>> who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of?
>> "The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation
>> left him like the air released from a toy balloon. ("Clear and

>> Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)]

>> The question expcts "yes" as an answer, but Chavez was asking it
>> to himself ironically. He has lost the exhilaration that combat
>> brought him, and regrets what he has done.

> Or it's a remnant of him trying to convince himself that he'd done a
> good thing.

Yes, maybe. But if he's trying to convince himself of that he already
knows he's done wrong.

[CDB]

On 10/2/2022 8:28 PM, Peter Moylan wrote:
> Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

>> occam <oc...@nowhere.nix> wrote:
>>> Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:

>>>> [Raises left eyebrow]

>>> You must be left-handed.

>> It's only logical

>> https://emojipedia.org/face-with-raised-eyebrow/

> As a right-handed person, I find it far easier to raise my right
> eyebrow.

I am right-handed but ambicilious. I got lots of practice when young,
tormenting a friend who had a thing about people who waggled them.

[CDB]

On 10/3/2022 2:34 AM, tonbei wrote:

> My context may not have been enough.

I think there was enough there to go on with.

> Their special operation was intended as a response to the FBI
> director killed when he was visiting Bogota, Columbia. That killing
> was done by a drug-syndicate as a response to U.S. catching
> airplanes carrying drugs over the Caribbean sea. So, Chevaz, aware
> of this, must have a sense of mission to justify his act.

> So, I guess, he was between that sensthat sense of mission and that

> fact that he had taken out a peasant, not a trained

"Fighter"? I agree. It was the killing of the peasant worker that he
regretted.

[CDB]

On 10/2/2022 5:23 PM, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> Sam Plusnet wrote:
>> Snidely wrote:
>>> Richard Heathfield explained :

>>>> bil...@shaw.ca wrote:
>>>>> tonbei wrote:

>>>>>> I have a question about the following sentences from a
>>>>>> novel.

>>>>>> Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb
>>>>>> bastards who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something
>>>>>> to be proud of? "The exhilaration that often follows a
>>>>>> successful combat operation left him like the air released
>>>>>> from a toy balloon. ("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom
>>>>>> Clancy, p431)

>>>>>> context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into
>>>>>> Columbia of South America for a secret operation to damage
>>>>>> refinery sites of coka leaves placed in forests. 2) A squad
>>>>>> with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and
>>>>>> killed its workers. 3) Chaves bent down to look into the
>>>>>> man he had just shot down and found he was just a peasant,
>>>>>> who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves until
>>>>>> before then.

>>>>> (snip)

>>>>> I think it has been four or five decades since I decided Tom
>>>>> Clancy was a hack, and I wasn't ever going to read him
>>>>> again.

>>>> Clancy's first novel was published in 1984.

>>>> 2022 - 1984 = 38

>>>> 38 < 40

>>>> =>

>>>> You are full of BS

>>>>> Therefore I will not be able to help you.

>>>> I don't suppose anyone will be too upset about that.

>>>> You are long overdue for my killfile.

>>>> *plink*

>>> Sheesh.

>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble by
>> pretending to be RH. As a person well known for 'robust' views -
>> and ways of expressing them, I didn't expect him to be precious
>> about the use of a rough approximation for a long time period.

> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a writer
> was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read a single
> word that writer had written.

I take it you liked the books.

>> Yer lives and learns.

> If I screw up, I take my lumps. I neither expect nor receive a free
> pass. Neither do you.

> So why should Bill?

You might better lump at him for a slight imprecision. It has been
thirty-eight years since 1984: not so far from four decades.

[CDB]

On 10/3/2022 2:27 AM, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> Sam Plusnet wrote:

>> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>>> Sam Plusnet wrote:

>>>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble by
>>>> pretending to be RH. As a person well known for 'robust' views
>>>> - and ways of expressing them, I didn't expect him to be
>>>> precious about the use of a rough approximation for a long time
>>>> period.

>>> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
>>> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a
>>> writer was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read
>>> a single word that writer had written.

>> So you don't accept the use of a "rough approximation" here?

>> That lack of precision seems to be your justification for some
>> pretty harsh words.

> You don't think "hack" is pretty harsh, then?

>> Other than that, it all boils down to a difference in opinion about
>> the value of Clancy's work. If you and Bill compared notes I'm
>> certain there will be some writers that he values and you dislike.

> No doubt, but I won't dismiss the authors I dislike as "hacks" on the
> basis of an opinion formed four or five decades ago before they'd
> written any actual books.

How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.

--
I could barely hack it.

[Paul Wolff]

On Mon, 3 Oct 2022, at 09:17:36, CDB posted:

But does Clancy sell to the man on the Clapham gustibus?
--
Paul

[Richard Heathfield]

Am I to take it that you only take up partisan positions and
cannot conceive of others taking up non-partisan positions?

>>> Yer lives and learns.
>
>> If I screw up, I take my lumps. I neither expect nor receive a
>> free pass. Neither do you.
>
>> So why should Bill?
>
> You might better lump at him for a slight imprecision.  It has been
> thirty-eight years since 1984: not so far from four decades.

But as it happens the carelessness dropped him right into a
logical contradiction when impugning the reputation of an author.
As Churchill didn't quite say, if you have to kill a man, it
costs nothing to check your facts before posting.

I look forward to reading Bill's novel, which promises to be a
real humdinger. No hack he, I trust!

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 03.10.2022 kl. 15.41 skrev CDB:

> How do you feel about Dan Brown?  I got all the way through _The Da
> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.

I didn't even have to read it to be put off. Reading about it was more
than enough.

--
Bertel

[Tony Cooper]

I did try to read it. It was similar to walking through sticky mud in
oversized gumboots.

[Richard Heathfield]

"Public key encryption was a concept as simple as it was
brilliant. It consisted of easy-to-use home-computer software
that scrambled personal E-mail messages in such a way that they
were totally unreadable. A user could write a letter and run it
through the encryption software, and the text would come out the
other side looking like random nonsense - totally illegible - a
code. Anyone intercepting the transmission found only an
unreadable garble on the screen. The only way to unscramble the
message was to enter the sender's `pass-key' - a secret series of
characters that functioned much like a PIN number at an automatic
teller. The pass-keys were generally quite long and complex; they
carried all the information necessary to instruct the encryption
algorithm exactly what mathematical operations to follow to
re-create the original message."

"By the 1990s, pass keys were over fifty characters long and
employed the full 256[sic]-character ASCII alphabet".

"An unbreakable code is a mathematical impossibility."

Those are *some* of the more embarrassing extracts from Dan
Brown's "Digital Fortress". The man does not understand public
key cryptography; he does not understand the one time pad; and he
doesn't even know that ASCII is a seven-bit code. These are
specific criticisms that I am prepared to defend on technical
grounds if need be. (They are not his only errors, either.)

I think Dan Brown bit off more than he could chew when venturing
into the crypto world, an opinion that I can certainly justify if
need be.

En passant, from what little I recall of Tom Clancy's forays into
the crypto world, he was less than perfect but considerably less
error-prone than Dan Brown.

But as one wide-lapeled gentleman was heard saying to another in
the back row of the Odeon, "that's not how you rob a bank". As a
***story-teller***, I found Dan Brown perfectly acceptable. It's
just a shame that he screwed up the technical side so badly.

[Jerry Friedman]

On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 6:22:16 AM UTC-6, Tony Cooper wrote:

[T. Clancy]

> When "hack" is used to describe a writer, the meaning I take is that
> the author has one basic plot and writes multiple novels using that
> same plot but changes only a few characters and minor plot points.
> The reader sometimes feels he's already read the book even though he
> hasn't, but has read previous books by that author.

I don't see it as that specific. It's an author who will do anything for
money. If that's sticking with a formula, that's one kind of hack-work,
but if it means switching genres, styles, etc., to whatever might sell,
that's another kind. And "hack" suggests not being very competent,
as in your description of /The Da Vinci Code/.

--
Jerry Friedman

[Richard Heathfield]

I occasionally stumble into starkly hostile reviews of films I
have enjoyed, and reflect that I'm glad I didn't see the review
first, as it may have stopped me enjoying or even watching the
film. I prefer to reach my own conclusions.

Having said that, I saw one review claiming that the film in
question was the worst ever made. Then I saw the film.

Just this once, chap had a point.

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 03.10.2022 kl. 16.45 skrev Richard Heathfield:

>> I didn't even have to read it to be put off. Reading about it was more
>> than enough.

> I occasionally stumble into starkly hostile reviews of films I have
> enjoyed, and reflect that I'm glad I didn't see the review first, as it
> may have stopped me enjoying or even watching the film. I prefer to
> reach my own conclusions.

That is of course a weakness of my attitude, and it is not the way I
usually go about, but something with secret codes and mysterious
interpretations of the Bible didn't appeal to me.

--
Bertel

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 9:41:29 AM UTC-4, CDB wrote:

> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.

How did you manage that? (I knew better than to try.) Whereas I
got 60 pages into *Clan of the Cave Bear* and literally threw it
across the room.

OTOH, I loved *The Name of the Rose* (wish I could read it in
the original Italian and Latin) and really did try with each of Eco's
subsequent novels, but gave up early, realizing they would be too
much effort.

This morning The New Yorker's David Remnick was assessing
Rushdie's chances of the Nobel Prize as having grown this year.
Maybe Nabokov should have arranged to be attacked. Or Vonnegut.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 9:48:13 AM UTC-4, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 03/10/2022 2:37 pm, CDB wrote:
> > On 10/2/2022 5:23 PM, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> >> Sam Plusnet wrote:

> >>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble
> >>> by pretending to be RH. As a person well known for 'robust'
> >>> views -
> >>> and ways of expressing them, I didn't expect him to be precious
> >>> about the use of a rough approximation for a long time period.
> >> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
> >> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a writer
> >> was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read a single
> >> word that writer had written.

No, what he is "precious" about is not understanding that "38" falls
within the bailiwick of "about 40."

> > I take it you liked the books.
>
> Am I to take it that you only take up partisan positions and
> cannot conceive of others taking up non-partisan positions?

OMG, that he believes such a thing is possible! It might
explain a lot.

Can "fair and balanced" be far behind?

[Dingbat]

On Friday, September 30, 2022 at 9:50:48 PM UTC-7, tonbei wrote:
> I have a question about the following sentences from a novel.
>
> Chavez had just killed a peasant, one of those poor dumb bastards who danced in the coca soup. Wasn't that something to be proud of? "The exhilaration that often follows a successful combat operation left him like the air released from a toy balloon.
> ("Clear and Present Danger " by Tom Clancy, p431)
>
> context (or situation): 1) U.S. soldiers were sent into Columbia of South America for a secret operation to damage refinery sites of coka leaves placed in forests.
> 2) A squad with Chaves as a point man attacked one of those sites, and killed its workers.
> 3) Chaves bent down to look into the man he had just shot down and found he was just a peasant, who had been stomping in the tub with coca leaves until before then.
>

> question: about "Wasn't that something to be proud of?" or usage of "negative question"
> "Was that something to be proud of?" would be straight and clear, so easy to understand, anticipating a negative answer in himself as a self-questioner doubtful of what he had done just then: No, it can't be what I will be proud of.
> On the other hand, that quoted negative question seems to anticipate an affirmative answer from himself.
> What effect is aimed at with this usage? Someone who asked himself this way, must deny more strongly if he wants to negate it.
>
> 1) "Is this something to be proud of? No, It's not."
> 2) "Isn't this something to be proud of? No, it can never be."
>
> So, 2) must be denied more strongly than 1) when he want to answer this self-question negatively.
> Is this right?


A German honored an American he killed in battle in WWI as his "bravest enemy".
That might have done the dead American little good but it made his mother proud.
https://americanhistory.si.edu/blog/WWI-letter

[Sam Plusnet]

It's that open platform at the back. Bound to be draughty.

--
Sam Plusnet

[Peter Moylan]

On 04/10/22 00:41, CDB wrote:
>
> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.

That's a common reaction, I gather. The surprising thing is that many of
us read all the way to the end of his first book.

For me, that was in part a result of early training. A book is a rare
and valuable thing, so it was almost unthinkable to start a book and not
finish it. I don't think I broke that rule until I got to Gibbon's
/Decline and Fall/.

--
Peter Moylan Newcastle, NSW http://www.pmoylan.org

[Paul Wolff]

On Tue, 4 Oct 2022, at 08:27:44, Peter Moylan posted:

I haven't absolutely given up on that yet, but one tyrant seems much the
same as another, I sometimes feel. Still, only six volumes to go now -
the end is in sight!
--
Paul

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 03.10.2022 kl. 23.27 skrev Peter Moylan:

> For me, that was in part a result of early training. A book is a rare
> and valuable thing, so it was almost unthinkable to start a book and not
> finish it.

That's an interesting attitude, one that I have never had. There have
certainly been 'slow' books where I had to work myself through a long
uninteresting beginning only later to find that the book was exciting
and riveting, but there are other books I have abandoned because I lost
interest or I left and forgot them without intentionally wanting to do so.

And there are books and films that I never see for reasons unknown to
myself. I can read about a film that may be getting excellent criticism,
but I know immediately that I am never going to see it. And there's no
recognizable pattern in the 'choices'.

--
Bertel

[lar3ryca]

That happened to me the first time I read anything by Hemingway.

--
"Is the epididymis like the urethra?"
"No. There's a vas deferens between them."

[Bertel Lund Hansen]

Den 04.10.2022 kl. 06.26 skrev lar3ryca:

> That happened to me the first time I read anything by Hemingway.

I'm surprised. I swallowed anything that Hemingway wrote including a
collection of newspaper (I think) articles.

--
Bertel

[Peter Moylan]

On 04/10/22 15:26, lar3ryca wrote:
> On 2022-10-03 15:27, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 04/10/22 00:41, CDB wrote:
>>>
>>> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
>>> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.
>>
>> That's a common reaction, I gather. The surprising thing is that many of
>> us read all the way to the end of his first book.
>>
>> For me, that was in part a result of early training. A book is a rare
>> and valuable thing, so it was almost unthinkable to start a book and not
>> finish it. I don't think I broke that rule until I got to Gibbon's
>> /Decline and Fall/.
>
> That happened to me the first time I read anything by Hemingway.

De gustibus. I really like Hemingway.

[CDB]

On 10/3/2022 12:04 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> CDB wrote:

>> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
>> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.

> How did you manage that? (I knew better than to try.) Whereas I got
> 60 pages into *Clan of the Cave Bear* and literally threw it across
> the room.

Stubborn. And maybe what Peter said.

> OTOH, I loved *The Name of the Rose* (wish I could read it in the
> original Italian and Latin) and really did try with each of Eco's
> subsequent novels, but gave up early, realizing they would be too
> much effort.

Maybe I'll try it.

[CDB]

On 10/3/2022 9:48 AM, Richard Heathfield wrote:

> CDB wrote:
>> Richard Heathfield wrote:
>>> Sam Plusnet wrote:
>>>> Snidely wrote:
>>>>> Richard Heathfield explained :
>>>>>> bil...@shaw.ca wrote:

[Tom Clancy and the trials of Chavez]

I don't think I've seen non-partisan positions expressed with quite so
much heat. I suppose it's possible that that comes from another source.
Do you hate Bill? Does your stomach hurt?

>>>> Yer lives and learns.

>>> If I screw up, I take my lumps. I neither expect nor receive a
>>> free pass. Neither do you.

>>> So why should Bill?

>> You might better lump at him for a slight imprecision. It has been
>> thirty-eight years since 1984: not so far from four decades.

> But as it happens the carelessness dropped him right into a logical
> contradiction when impugning the reputation of an author. As
> Churchill didn't quite say, if you have to kill a man, it costs
> nothing to check your facts before posting.

> I look forward to reading Bill's novel, which promises to be a real
> humdinger. No hack he, I trust!

Hack you the cloud and read the novel first.
Give him the bird, if find you there the worst.
>

[Richard Heathfield]

Heat? What heat?

> I suppose it's possible that that comes from another
> source.
> Do you hate Bill?

No. Why should I? Do you?

>  Does your stomach hurt?

No. Does yours?

>>>>> Yer lives and learns.
>
>>>> If I screw up, I take my lumps. I neither expect nor receive
>>>> a free pass. Neither do you.
>
>>>> So why should Bill?
>
>>> You might better lump at him for a slight imprecision.  It has
>>> been
>>> thirty-eight years since 1984: not so far from four decades.
>
>> But as it happens the carelessness dropped him right into a
>> logical contradiction when impugning the reputation of an
>> author. As Churchill didn't quite say, if you have to kill a
>> man, it costs nothing to check your facts before posting.
>
>> I look forward to reading Bill's novel, which promises to be a
>> real humdinger. No hack he, I trust!
>
> Hack you the cloud and read the novel first.
> Give him the bird, if find you there the worst.

Does he even have a publication date yet? I can't read it to form
an opinion until it's been published.

[Ken Blake]

I never liked Hemingway, but I recently reread "For Whom the Bell
Tolls" to see if my opinion had changed.

To my surprise, it had changed. I still wasn't crazy about it, but
liked it much more than I had expected to.

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 5:27:49 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 04/10/22 00:41, CDB wrote:
> >
> > How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
> > Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.
> That's a common reaction, I gather. The surprising thing is that many of
> us read all the way to the end of his first book.

Really? A usedbook store I frequented had on display for the longest
time a copy of a novel by Dan Brown published before *The Da Vinci
Code* priced at $1000. The seller checked an online usedbook pricing
guide and said that was a realistic ask.

> For me, that was in part a result of early training. A book is a rare
> and valuable thing, so it was almost unthinkable to start a book and not
> finish it. I don't think I broke that rule until I got to Gibbon's
> /Decline and Fall/.

Hm. If you could get through TDVC, maybe you'd been spoiled for
good, if orotund, writing.

[Peter Moylan]

On 04/10/22 23:57, CDB wrote:
> On 10/3/2022 12:04 PM, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
>> CDB wrote:
>
>>> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The
>>> Da Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.
>
>> How did you manage that? (I knew better than to try.) Whereas I got
>> 60 pages into *Clan of the Cave Bear* and literally threw it across
>> the room.
>
> Stubborn. And maybe what Peter said.
>
>> OTOH, I loved *The Name of the Rose* (wish I could read it in the
>> original Italian and Latin) and really did try with each of Eco's
>> subsequent novels, but gave up early, realizing they would be too
>> much effort.
>
> Maybe I'll try it.

I too loved /The Name of the Rose/, but then I read /Foucault's
Pendulum/, and decided that Eco was a one-book author. OK, it was
well-written, but a pain to read.

[Quinn C]

* Peter T. Daniels:

> On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 5:27:49 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 04/10/22 00:41, CDB wrote:
>>>
>>> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
>>> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.
>> That's a common reaction, I gather. The surprising thing is that many of
>> us read all the way to the end of his first book.
>
> Really? A usedbook store I frequented had on display for the longest
> time a copy of a novel by Dan Brown published before *The Da Vinci
> Code* priced at $1000. The seller checked an online usedbook pricing
> guide and said that was a realistic ask.

As per WP, The Da Vinci Code was his fourth, but also the second in a
series.

--
Canada is not the United States. We can't just thump the table
and demand things, and expect everyone to fall in line. We have
to work with other people.
-- Jeffrey Lewis

[Quinn C]

* Peter T. Daniels:

> On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 9:48:13 AM UTC-4, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>> On 03/10/2022 2:37 pm, CDB wrote:
>>> On 10/2/2022 5:23 PM, Richard Heathfield wrote:
>>>> Sam Plusnet wrote:
>
>>>>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble
>>>>> by pretending to be RH. As a person well known for 'robust'
>>>>> views -
>>>>> and ways of expressing them, I didn't expect him to be precious
>>>>> about the use of a rough approximation for a long time period.
>>>> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
>>>> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a writer
>>>> was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read a single
>>>> word that writer had written.
>
> No, what he is "precious" about is not understanding that "38" falls
> within the bailiwick of "about 40."

One could argue that a time span given in decades includes an assumed
precision of +/- 5, so that "4 or 5 decades" means between 35 and 55
years.

--
It's a strange sensation, dying. No matter how many times it happens
to you, you never get used to it.
-- Ezri Dax, ST DS9, S07E03

[Quinn C]

* Peter Moylan:

I relied on the movie for Rose, but read The Search for the Perfect
Language (in German).

--
I'm a character actor - which they call actors who are not gorgeous,
or young.
-- Saul Rubinek

[Quinn C]

* Peter T. Daniels:

> On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 9:41:29 AM UTC-4, CDB wrote:
>
>> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
>> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.
>
> How did you manage that? (I knew better than to try.) Whereas I
> got 60 pages into *Clan of the Cave Bear* and literally threw it
> across the room.
>
> OTOH, I loved *The Name of the Rose* (wish I could read it in
> the original Italian and Latin) and really did try with each of Eco's
> subsequent novels, but gave up early, realizing they would be too
> much effort.

A German friend of mine read The Name of the Rose in French, with the
expectation that it'd preserve more of the taste of the Italian.

--
Sure, everybody has the right to speak their opinion; but not
the right to identify this opinion as truth, and erect pyres
for dissenters.
-- Hedwig Dohm (1903), my translation

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 5:17:21 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter T. Daniels:
> > On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 5:27:49 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >> On 04/10/22 00:41, CDB wrote:

> >>> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
> >>> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.
> >> That's a common reaction, I gather. The surprising thing is that many of
> >> us read all the way to the end of his first book.
> > Really? A usedbook store I frequented had on display for the longest
> > time a copy of a novel by Dan Brown published before *The Da Vinci
> > Code* priced at $1000. The seller checked an online usedbook pricing
> > guide and said that was a realistic ask.
>
> As per WP, The Da Vinci Code was his fourth, but also the second in a
> series.

Even worse!!!

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 5:17:23 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter T. Daniels:
> > On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 9:48:13 AM UTC-4, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> >> On 03/10/2022 2:37 pm, CDB wrote:
> >>> On 10/2/2022 5:23 PM, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> >>>> Sam Plusnet wrote:
> >
> >>>>> My first thought was that some troll was stirring up trouble
> >>>>> by pretending to be RH. As a person well known for 'robust'
> >>>>> views -
> >>>>> and ways of expressing them, I didn't expect him to be precious
> >>>>> about the use of a rough approximation for a long time period.
> >>>> There's more to it than that. What I'm "precious" about is the
> >>>> arrogant, ignorant declaration that the OP "decided" that a writer
> >>>> was a hack at a time when he could not possibly have read a single
> >>>> word that writer had written.
> >
> > No, what he is "precious" about is not understanding that "38" falls
> > within the bailiwick of "about 40."
> One could argue that a time span given in decades includes an assumed
> precision of +/- 5, so that "4 or 5 decades" means between 35 and 55
> years.

Sounds about right.

NBC's *Meet the Press* does a "Data Download" every week,
presenting statistics on something-or-other that's newsworthy,
and they put up poll results in other stories as well. There used
to be a line -- too small to read -- giving the margin of error, but
in recent weeks even that line doesn't seem to be there any more

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 5:17:23 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:

Oh, there's nothing hard about his technical essays. (I don't even
notice the translator's name; or maybe he often wrote them in
English.)

[Sam Plusnet]

On 05-Oct-22 22:17, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter T. Daniels:

>> No, what he is "precious" about is not understanding that "38" falls
>> within the bailiwick of "about 40."
>
> One could argue that a time span given in decades includes an assumed
> precision of +/- 5, so that "4 or 5 decades" means between 35 and 55
> years.
>

Unnecessary precision.

I applied, online, to renew my Driving Licence (BrE remember) and one
item required me to state how long I had lived at my current address.
There were two fields for "Years" and "Months".
That latter field make prefect sense if you have moved recently.
However, when you have been at the same address for over 4 decades, that
field seems pretty redundant - but must be filled in nonetheless.

Happily, I could give an accurate answer, since we moved in a few days
before my wife's birthday.
(She demanded, but I refused, to gift-wrap the house.)



--
Sam Plusnet

[Peter T. Daniels]

Various places have (differing) specific days when people move
(and leases expire) -- in Chicago, April 1; in NYC, October 1. It's
sort-of convenient, I suppose, if some combination of a few days
before and a few days after can be worked out.

[Quinn C]

I even recognized the first title it followed - Angels and Demons.

The whole series can be bought on Amazon for $42, quite a bit less than
$1000/volume.

--
The notion that there might be a "truth" of sex, as Foucault
ironically terms it, is produced precisely through the regulatory
practices that generate coherent identities through the matrix of
coherent gender norms. -- Judith Butler

[Quinn C]

* Peter T. Daniels:

Well, those are common and regular (in Montreal, July 1), but recently,
I noticed that September was nearing its end by a surfeit of U-hauls, so
I believe a lot of people do move at different dates. The apartment
before this, I moved in around November 10.

--
Oh Sam! You're so funny and insensitive! -- Cat

[Peter T. Daniels]

On Thursday, October 6, 2022 at 8:13:14 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> * Peter T. Daniels:
> > On Wednesday, October 5, 2022 at 5:17:21 PM UTC-4, Quinn C wrote:
> >> * Peter T. Daniels:
> >>> On Monday, October 3, 2022 at 5:27:49 PM UTC-4, Peter Moylan wrote:
> >>>> On 04/10/22 00:41, CDB wrote:

> >>>>> How do you feel about Dan Brown? I got all the way through _The Da
> >>>>> Vinci Code_, and one taste was all I will ever want.
> >>>> That's a common reaction, I gather. The surprising thing is that many of
> >>>> us read all the way to the end of his first book.
> >>> Really? A usedbook store I frequented had on display for the longest
> >>> time a copy of a novel by Dan Brown published before *The Da Vinci
> >>> Code* priced at $1000. The seller checked an online usedbook pricing
> >>> guide and said that was a realistic ask.
> >> As per WP, The Da Vinci Code was his fourth, but also the second in a
> >> series.
> > Even worse!!!
>
> I even recognized the first title it followed - Angels and Demons.
>
> The whole series can be bought on Amazon for $42, quite a bit less than
> $1000/volume.

Probably not signed first printings (like there was ever another) with
intact dust jackets.

[Sam Plusnet]

Isn't it 'traditional' to hire a U-haul to cart your offspring and their
chattels to college?



--
Sam Plusnet