quote:
Originally posted by the brainless wonder:
Why do you guys talk shit about .NET, something you obviously know nothing about, or you would see what a great innovation it is.
This sentence is incorrect. The clause in the middle, "something you obviously know nothing about", can be removed for the purpose of instruction to reveal:
"Why do you guys talk shit about .NET or you would see what a great innovation it is."
Firstly, a sentence beginning with "Why" is a question, and should always finish off with a question mark. This would give us:
"Why do you guys talk shit about .NET or you would see what a great innovation it is?"
Clearly this is not correct. The presence of "would" in the second clause indicates that this sentence is in fact a statement. This belies the word "Why" in the first clause, as discussed previously. The meaning of this sentence is therefore obfuscated by virtue of its clauses having opposing purposes. In the next section, I hazard a guess or two about the actual meaning of this sentence, and how best to express that meaning using correct grammar.
quote:
Originally posted by the numbskull we all love to dislike:
Why do you guys talk shit about .NET, something you obviously know nothing about, or you would see what a great innovation it is.
I would say, from previous linguistic experience, that the sentiments of this sentence can be expressed most clearly in one of the following ways:
---example one---
"Why do you guys talk shit about '.NET'? It is obviously something that you know very little about since, if you did, you would understand that it is a great innovation"
This example is not identical in meaning to the original for two reasons.
Firstly there is a distinction between knowing "very little" and "nothing". This is a modification of my own. I believe it is justified since it is hardly possible to know
nothing about something if you have indeed been talking about it. In this case, the recipient of this statement already knows the
name of '.NET' and can therefore not be said to know "nothing" about it.
Secondly (it is my understanding that) the implication in the original is that '.NET' is, in fact, "great". This is reflected in my example above where I say "it is a great innovation". It is important to understand, though, that the original does not state this. It merely states that the recipient would "see what a great innovation it is". At no point are we actually enlightened with regard to how much of a "great innovation" '.NET' will be seen to be.
---example two---
"You guys obviously know nothing about '.NET'. If you did you would be able to see what a great innovation it is. Why do you guys talk shit about it?"
This example is truer to the spirit of the original in my opinion, as it is not hidebound by the issue of how much of a "great innovation" '.NET' actually is. The ambiguousness of the original has been kept intact, with no indication of whether or not the speaker does, in point of fact, believe '.NET' to be an innovation.
This example is also much more robust and straightforward. It begins by making a statement, it continues by providing evidence to back up the original statement, and it concludes by seeking information in order to further qualify the opinions voiced in the first and second instances.
In conclusion it seems to me that the writer of the original sentence attempted to place more into a single sentence than the English language can comfortably allow. As we have seen, the original does in fact contain two statements and a question, and it would have been much clearer had the original been written in this way to begin with.
Now that the grammatical issues of the statement have been cleared up it behooves me only to attempt to clear up the logistic errors intrinsic in the original sentence.
First of all, the sentence states that the only reason to believe that the "you guys" mentioned do, in point of fact, know nothing about '.NET' is the fact that they do not "see" to what degree '.NET' is a "great innovation". No clue is given to indicate the degree to which it
is an innovation and therefore the accusatory assumption that "you guys" do not know anything about '.NET' and are, in fact, "talk[ing] shit" appears to be completely without justification. If some sort of statement had been made to indicate the degree of innovation that '.NET' achieved, this would not be a problem.
That concludes my discourse on the flaws of the sentence:
quote:
Originally posted by the dickhead that would get lost in a shower:
Why do you guys talk shit about .NET, something you obviously know nothing about, or you would see what a great innovation it is.
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And to answer your question directly, windowsxpuser652437856278562387whocares89403282904820423, GET A LIFE!!! You can read my full opinions on .net in the previous post.
[ May 31, 2002: Message edited by: Calum ]
