"Anna L. Abrante" wrote:
> One of the things that bothers me most about these lists is how
> people read into what is written.
If I have read something into your post that you didn't intend and
wasn't there I am sorry.

> The written word has NO INFLECTION.
> When we make an emphasis, it is just that, an emphasis.
> There is no such thing as sarcasm in the normally written word.
> There are sarcastic words, like expletives, and words that are directly
> meant to insult, like offensive names. But I don't ever use those.  I
> particularly didn't use any here.
I think we have a different impression of what constitutes sarcasm.
I don't think that insults or expletives are sarcasm (they sometimes
might go together, but they are NOT the same in my book). Not being
a linguist I am not going to insist that I am right in this, just that
my understanding of what is sarcasm is different from yours. I did NOT
perceive any insults from you in your message, if that's what you thought
I said.

> If anyone ever reads sarcasm in writing that does not contain
> expletives or insults, it is because they want to. And it's
> more of a reflection on them and their mood, than what is
> written.
Again, we seem to have a different understanding of what sarcasm is.

> Maybe you
> can re-read my post with a bit of a change in attitude, like a
> smile on your face.  Then you'll know what mood I was in
> when I wrote it. (sincere suggestion)..I am a bit curious
> as to why you would *want* (intentional emphasis) to read it
> as sarcastic.  Could you not see the value in the question?
I was NOT in a bad mood when I read your post nor was I in one
afterwards. I was just surprised to see, what to me appeared to
be sarcasm, without obvious cause. I was not offended or upset by
your post, just surprised.

> And as for the "us vs. them" thing.....huh?  What are you
> talking about?  The only us/them thing I see, is for the use of
> comparison,,,which obviously is what we do here every day on
> this list by comparing our diets with those of HG's....what
> other us vs them thing can there be?
That is the us vs. them thing I was talking about. The post was
about a possible explanation of increased colon cancer with meat
consumption. I suggested that a possible explanation
for this isn't meat consumption per say, but how it is cooked,
since burned food is believed to be carcinogenic. You started
saying that HG's could have/would have made the same cooking mistakes.
Perhaps, but it didn't have any relevance to my post (burning meat
being a possible explanation for correlation of meat consumption
and colon cancer). Thus I asked how has this become a 'us vs. them'.

> I am genuinely puzzled.   ,':-o
So am I. I am also surprised at the page long response to a single
one liner asking why all the sarcasm. A simple 'no sarcasm intended'
would have sufficed, instead of a lecture on how I should be reading
messages and what my mindset was when I did it. At the very least
this was an overreaction.

At this point I don't really have an issue with this (as I think
it was mostly a misunderstanding of the use of the word sarcasm)
so please lets not continue with this thread. If you need to say
more please lets exchange private e-mails instead of posting to
the list.

Thanks
Ilya