From: ted@eslvcr.wimsey.bc.ca (Ted Powell)
Subject: Re: <None>
Summary: Please carefully check attributions
Organization: Entropy Limited, Vancouver Canada
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 03:17:18 GMT

In article <GERRY.92Oct1190149@onion.cmu.edu> gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
>In article <1992Sep28.191617.4384@desire.wright.edu> sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
>
>
>   >>In article <Sep18.050933.60537@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) writes:
>   >>|In article <GERRY.92Sep17120955@onion.cmu.edu> gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:
>   >>|What *I* want to know is how come all the pro-choicers are against capital
>   >>|punishment?
>
>What I want to know is this:
>
>Why are you lame-brains misquoting me twice in one week!!!  I never
>said the above!  (I never use *xxx* for emphasis...)  

Please spend a bit of time learning to understand attributions before
waving your flamethrower around. There are ZERO lines in your quote of the
previous article that are attributed to you. Further, there are ZERO lines
in the previous article itself that are attributed to you. The lines in
this article that are attributed to you are the ones with one more quote 
mark than the lines you are reading right now and the ones with five more 
quote marks. Please note that the number of lines with five more quote marks 
than the lines you are reading right now is zero. 
    The lines which are attributed to you are the ones bearing one more
quote mark than the attribution line which contains your name. Check
carefully in the above, in your own article, and in the article you were
replying to, and you will find that in each case there are ZERO lines
containing one more quote mark than the attribution line containing your
name. You could plausibly complain about the waste of bandwith entailed by
including an attribution line which does not relate to any quoted text, but
that would be a different issue.
    The line containing "What *I* want to know..." was attributed to Alan
Smith, inasmuch as it has one more quote mark than the attribution line
containing his name. Unless you really don't understand how attributions
work, I don't know why you consider it relevant that you "never use *xxx* 
for emphasis." The only relevant issue there is whether _Alan_ uses *xxx*
for emphasis, since it was attributed to him, not you.

>I can make an ass of myself without any of your help.  

I would not be so unkind as to endorse this.

>PLEASE CAREFULLY CHECK ATTRIBUTIONS ON ALL INCLUDED MATERIALS!

Please do. Once more, the lines that are attributed to you are the ones
that bear one more quote mark than the attribution line(s) containing your
name. If this number happens to be zero, it simply means that the
attribution line itself has been accidentally ("carelessly", if you wish, 
but "maliciously" would IMHO be taking it too far) carried over from an 
earlier article.
    If you wish to complain that the inclusion of an attribution line with
zero lines of related text might confuse the naive reader, you would have a
point--demonstrably. However, it would be more constructive to phrase your
complaint in a way that does not reinforce the confusion, IMHO. That is, it
would be more constructive to point out that an attribution line containing
your name has zero lines of related text, rather than muddying the waters
by claiming that lines which were actually attributed to someone else have 
been attributed to you.

-- 
ted@eslvcr.wimsey.bc.ca   {ubc-cs,uunet}!van-bc!eslvcr!ted   (Ted Powell)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic