|  | Posted by dorayme on 01/29/08 23:20 
In article <Xns9A349F6545560nanopandaneredbojias@85.214.90.236>,Neredbojias <monstersquasher@yahoo.com> wrote:
 
 > Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Tue, 29 Jan 2008 22:15:37
 > GMT dorayme scribed:
 >
 > >> > Ah Boji, you very significantly don't say what a bottomless cup
 > >> > is. Most of us would have no trouble, it is *a bottomless cup*.
 > >> > But all you can say is "Nope". I do understand your predicament.
 > >> > Having eschewed a perfectly natural form of words, you are at a
 > >> > loss to describe such a cup.
 > >>
 > >> A cup needs a bottom to be a cup.  Is that unreasonable?
 > >
 > > Not really, no. What would you call the cups I have previously
 > > described without being silly? Would you make up your own terms?
 >
 > Well, I might call the "punishment cup" a groin-drencher.  Does that
 > help?
 >
 
 This is supposed to be a non-silly answer?
 
 > > I can see that you have no patience or stomach for the enquiries
 > > I have made to you to explore a distinction you yourself made.
 > > There is no need to explain why this is so, I accept all
 > > responsibility.
 >
 > It's nice to see a woman who admits she's wrong when she's wrong at least
 > some of the time.
 >
 
 I was trying to be courteous to you. You are greatly
 misunderstand many things.
 
 > > For anyone else that might be interested (highly unlikely to be
 > > many <g>): The idea that a cup without a bottom is still a cup is
 > > not some sort of joke. It is the serious point that if you do not
 > > call it a cup, you have lost a perfectly proper and natural way
 > > of describing it. This point is an objection to the common
 > > practice of avoiding real issues by red herrings about words.
 >
 > Who said one couldn't call it a cup?  But what you call it and what it
 > is...
 >
 
 The question is not about what we *can* call something. It is
 about what it ought to be called. We both can agree that a cup
 without a bottom is a rather different object, with a different
 purpose to a cup with a bottom. The question still arises about
 the status of the bottom in the cup that does have a bottom vis a
 vis the distinction between engineering and design.
 
 
 > > The point of probing the distinction between design and
 > > engineering is to see what the true ingredients are of a designed
 > > object, to distinguish in it the various aspects. These aspects
 > > can be divorced from the actual histories and psychology of the
 > > object and its creators.
 >
 > Since when does an inanimate object have a psychology?  Hast thee been
 > perusing too many cartoon teleshows of late?
 
 Please add a "respectively" in the sentence:
 
 "These aspects can be divorced from the actual histories and
 psychology of - respectively - the object and its creators."
 
 or better still parse it into:
 
 "These aspects can be divorced from the actual histories the
 object."
 
 and
 
 "These aspects can be divorced from the actual psychology of its
 creators."
 
 --
 dorayme
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