[Am-info] Congratulations!

[felmon davis]

On Sunday 28 October 2001 23:41, Simon Cooke wrote:
> To everyone for twisting my words.
>
> I am not threatening anyone.
>
> Would anyone like to dissect what I wrote and tell me exactly what
> is a threat?
>
> And Mr. Dodel, please feel free to call the Seattle Police. You
> assinine fuckwit of a retarded piece of dog sputum.
>
> Simon

wow, this discussion's really taking a dumb turn! I haven't seen 
stuff like this since I used to read a certain advocacy newsgroup. 

are there linguistics studies of the flow of chat in email 
lists/groups like this one? I think the thematic thread can get 
weirdly out of joint, kind of like the game where people write down 
something in reaction to what the preceding person wrote - when you 
put all the lines together, you get schizoid texts - like this thread!

Cooke used the above words to _illustrate_ something he thought 
(falsely, I believe) was a logical consequence of what the preceding 
writer had said. philosophers call it the 'use/mention' distinction: 
he was just 'mentioning' the threat words, not 'using' them. Cooke 
didn't use quotation-marks though and now the words are being cited 
as if he had actually _used_ them to make a threat.

as far as I can tell, the only thematically relevant subthread here 
is the one about whether Windows is _intrinsically_ somehow 
'virus-prone' although the 'terms of service' dispute is a fun 
diversion. the name-calling and threats (or even 'threats') are not.

F.