Theos-Talk Archives (January 2005 Message tt00296)

<< Even when the writer is satisfied that the sentence or paragraph 
carries its intended meaning, that is no guarantee that the sentence 
will not have a very different meaning to the reader. >>

This statement reminds me of why I dropped out of participation in a 
particular Mensa discussion list years ago. (Yes, I used to be a member, 
am no longer, no activities in rural Arkansas.)

In this particular group was a lady who insisted an telling us exactly 
what we meant by our words. It did us NO GOOD to tell her what we meant 
by those words. She knew, 100%, what we meant, even when we didn't mean 
it (and even if everyone else in that group understood our meaning).

It just got so frustrating to get into arguments based on her knowing 
she was 100% right. She was the type of person who even KNEW that it was 
wrong to shout, even one word. She had learned, years ago, that if you 
wanted to emphasize one word, that you were to do it with extra 
characters. She would *emphasize* a word like that, and insisted that 
was the *only* way to do it. But as you can see with my prior sentences, 
paragraphs, I prefer to EMPHASIZE a word by capitalizing it. She called 
that shouting. It did us no good to point out that "Netiquette" 
tutorials defined shouting as capitalizing entire sentences or entire 
messages. She knew she was right.

Anyway, mhy point is that there will ALWAYS be people who will interpret 
someone's words the wrong way, and KNOW that they are right, even if 
everyone else has a different point of view.

--
John, webmaster
www.GodLovesEveryone.org and www.MAZES.com

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list? (Or for yourself?)

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or: http://www.GodLovesEveryone.org/spiritual-dvds-every-month/

I checked out one month's worth of DVDs and loved every minute. And I
really appreciated the fact that they didn't try to promote just one
point of view.