Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Thu, 23 Jul 1992 08:52:00 LCL
From:         Carol_Carmick@BEAV.INTERSOLV.COM
Subject:      More recidivous rhetorical metagrobolizing
Comments: To: WORDS-L@uga.cc.uga.edu

(Elwood, this won't make a <lick of sense> to you, so you might as
well stop reading right now.)

     (introductory harrumphing deleted)

>Apparently Carol thinks this is damning to my case, unless I am mistaken
>again - there is no assuming anything reasonable now.

     *sigh*  Tushar, you're <doing it again>....

>Perhaps I should put
>this in perspective, hoping that the point is comprehended.

     Maybe I haven't had enough coffee, but tushar's tone of
     intellectual condescension is finally beginning to irk me.

>Yes, I can
>always resort to arm-waving incomprehension no matter what she says. This
>is another place where we seem to agree. However, it is still important to
>pause a while and examine at what point I have resorted to arm-waving
>incomprehension, namely, right from the beginning of the letter. I respect-
>fully submit that my resorting to arm-waving incomprehension is a resorting
>to arm-waving incomprehension which ought to tell Carol that her arguments
                                                                  ^^^^^^^^^
     Jokes, tushar, not arguments.  Or didn't you hear a word I said?

>are arm-wave-inducingly incomprehensible to a normal human being.
                                               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     Ironic emphasis strongly added.  Tushar apparently thinks that
     obsessive perseveration, mind-numbing verbosity, and a hamstrung
     sense of humor are attributes of a normal human being.

>I am grateful - and, why deny it, rather flattered - to accept that I have
>a facility with hyperbole, indirection, and comic non sequitur. In passing,
>I might also mention that in addition to hyperbole I am also rather good at
>.... well ... something which rather makes me geometrically complete in my
>modes of expression.

     I'm hoping for tushar's sake that he is tiptoeing coyly around a
     naughty mathematical pun.  Unfortunately, I don't get it.

>The central problem, unfortunately, is that the " ""alien framework of
>reasoning"" " (which could easily have been "alien framework of reasoning
>but for Carol's penchant for cheap effects with quotation marks)

     Don't get this either.  Perhaps tushar has run aground on British
     vs. American use of quotation marks; but his usage doesn't seem
     to adhere to British standards either.  Tell you what, tushar --
     you take the philosophical shots and leave the punctuation to me.

>is a far
>more alien framework of reasoning than the modes of expression alluded to
>above.

>There is a problem with vocabulary too - Carol seems to have a rather non-
>standard one. Perhaps it's my ignorance showing here but "non-Euclidean"
>seems meaningless in the context here.

     I knew tushar would rag on me about this.  I was describing
     discourse in which a straight line is not necessarily the
     shortest distance between two points.  Anyone in the class who
     didn't get it, please raise your hand.

>It might be a sign of serious
>misconception of all human culture to confuse terms on this grand a scale,

     Yipes!  It's not just a joke that tushar doesn't get -- it's a
     thought-crime against humanity!

>and I must be forgiven for keeping this always in mind. If one reflects on
>this, the meaning of the word "alien" as I use it will be clearer.

     I'm reflecting, but nothing's happening.

     (Witty and lucid quoted paragraph deleted.)

>Ah, but here is where we go into ever deeper levels of meta-argument, and
>perhaps - perhaps! - one may, at this new level of abstraction, begin to
>notice some features common to both of us! Carol questions the motives of
>the argument, descending (paradoxically, while ascending) into the comic
>value of the argument.

     Up the down staircase?  Block that metaphor!

>I am truly shocked that my thesis could be taken as
>anything other than a serious examination of text. I have to say more on
>this at some later stage,

     Threats will avail you nothing, tushar.

>but I feel compelled to mention this forcefully
>at this point.

>I never stoop so low as to resort to trivialities like witty repartee,
>intention to amuse, lightening of the foot,

     Yes, I see that now.

>or, for that matter, in case
>that is what Carol expects, replying to her posting by another X-oracular
>posting containing six shallow, illogical and just this side of unparseable
>statements purporting to demonstrate why Carol is not as happy as my elephant

     Unnecessary.  Assuming that tushar doesn't incessantly
     metagrobolize his elephant, I know exactly why I am less happy
     than it is.

>with the sole object of extorting cheap laughter from onlookers. If she
>expects that then she is, if I may coin a phrase, sadly mistaken.

     A withering silence was what I actually expected.  An amusing
     answer in kind was the least of my hopes.  A tangential riff that
     warped the jam into some weird and illuminating new dimension...
     well, I see now there was no point in hoping.

     (Pointedly astute paragraph deleted.)

>This is perhaps where we differ -  as will be made clear in my soon to be
>posted essay where I irrefutably establish it with absolute logical rigour
>that the measure of success is always absolute logical rigour, the measure
>of success is always absolute logical rigour.

     Now, this *is* good.  Tushar's personality appears to be
     disintegrating under the weight of his obsession with
     rationality.  Notice how the spittle flecks his lips as he
     brokenly repeats the same meaningless phrase.  I'm reminded of
     the famous "Daisy" scene in _2001_.  Bravo, tushar!

>If that is the only yardstick to be applied here, and if that is the only
>motivation, I might as well stop examining these things in a closer light.

     I always enjoy a good b.s. session about what people find funny
     and why.  But I agree with you, tushar -- I don't think you're
     the right guy for the job.

>As for an aesthetics of humour, there is some doubt about the existence of a
>reed strong enough to base it on, a fact which, I hope, takes care of the
>word "funnier", just in case it was mistakenly thought of as objectively
>defined to begin with. Apparently the last clause above is meant to be
>funny; that should serve as an illustration of the high subjectivity the
>word is subject to.

     (derisive closing deleted)

>This would serve almost equally well.

     Tushar, I would *never* waste my time trying to define "funnier"
     objectively.  It's like they say: One man's Mede is another man's
     Persian.

     (rim shot deleted)

     Carol
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