Newsgroups: misc.legal
From: cbo@cs.toronto.edu (Calvin Bruce Ostrum)
Subject: Re: Hate Speech Okay, says the Supreme Court
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Date: 25 Jul 92 06:07:50 GMT

In article <1992Jul24.183524.28213@eff.org>
    mnemonic@eff.org (Mike Godwin) writes:

| If you have a lot of time on your hands, Calvin, and you feel a need
| to criticize me, why criticize me for something I did not say
| (specifically, I did not say that my error in this case was a "typo")?

I did not criticise Mike for something he did not say.  I did speculate,
somewhat caustically and cynically, it is true, as to what manoeuvre he
might employ to avoid the responsibility for his errors.  To do this I 
simply extrapolated from his earlier claim that substituting "Iago" for
"Othello" was a "typo", and also pointed out that even this error (blamed 
on his fingers: see below) could only be admitted to in a context 
where some aspect of his superiority (his blinding typing speed) or some
failing of someone else (Ed's "viciousness and willful stupidity") was
used to excuse it.

We'll never know whether I was mistaken with this speculation, 
because Mike would not be so foolish as to confirm it after having 
read it (see Popper and MacKay on "The Logical Indeterminacy of a
Free Choice"). But yes, I do know that Mike's errors are not typos,
the way "typo" is used by normal speakers of English.


| Incidentally, "typo" is used these days as a generic term for mistakes
| made when one's typing fingers don't accurately represent the words
| one was trying to type.

I thank Mike for the "It Pays to Increase Your Word Power" cameo.
(Unfortunately I couldn't find any definition for "typo" in the OED 
or Webster's Third, except for "typographical error", which was not 
itself defined.)  Mike's dissociation of fingers from self, and the 
passive mode employed ("mistakes made" -- by what, or who?), are 
interesting features of this particular definition.

| In the case of the CLS comment, I made no typos. But I nonetheless
| misspoke. The distinction shouldn't be hard for anyone to accept.

And in fact, every time Mike has had the occasion to use "CLS" in this
thread, he "misspoke" in the same way.  (Up until my first post and as
far as I can tell, anyway. Maybe by now Mike has started to use "CLS"
as plural, even though he was better off at first, using it as 
singular).  Yet "Iago" was a typo.  Got it.

| I have to wonder about your motives here. Since you have invented
| a comment from me in order to criticize it, why not tell us what you're
| really after?

I invented no comment from Mike.  I merely speculated as to how he 
might attempt to weasel out of the error he made.  A tiny little bit
of tit for snotty tat.  Nowhere did I say that he referred to his 
systematic misuse (by his own lights) of the phrase "CLS" by using the 
word "typo".  In fact, it is *Mike* who has invented (in his mind) 
a comment from *me*. 

Deja vu, all over again.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Calvin Ostrum                                            cbo@cs.toronto.edu  
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
           "Can I have another piece of chocolate cake?" 
 "You can have your cake and eat it, and never have to puke up a thing."
		-- Crowded House/Richard Thompson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: misc.legal