Ken Caviness <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Je 09:30 AM 04.12.97 -0800, Bruce R. Gilson skribis:

>>James:

>>Don Harlow's attacks are as nothing compared to a certain S. R. Dalton, who
>>mercifully has departed from this list. Probably about 20 years ago he began
>>a flood of vituperation against me for taking the position that I'd rather
>>trust what Jespersen said in the "History of Our Language" as an account of
>>the 1907 events than the writings of his hero Gaston Waringhien. After many
>>years of noncontact he came onto this list, discovered me on it, and sent
>>missive after missive along the same lines; some people departed the list
>>because it was turning into nothing but ad hominem attacks. He even attached
>>-ism to my name, and attempted to argue behind my back by posting in E-o so
>>I would not read the more vicious items.

>May I ask why you are still railing against someone who is no longer on the
>auxlang list?  Or is it your contention that every person who supports
>Esperanto, whether after mature consideration or "through ignorance" (as
>some have claimed *must* be the case), must necessarily hold the same views
>as this S. R. Dalton?

No. Actually my post was to indicate that as vicious and ad-hominem as Harlow's
post seemed to Chandler, there are people within the E-o movement who make
Don Harlow look, by comparison, like a gentleman.

>I see no purpose in soundly defeating an absent opponent, unless by
>extension this is an attack on all Esperantists.

Actually it was a _defense_ of some of those E-ists who remain on the list.
Read my comment more carefully. I said:
"Don Harlow's attacks are as nothing compared to a certain S. R. Dalton..."
Doesn't this imply that Don wasn't really so bad, that there have been worse?

>>But, given that they have an inferior product, E-ists have to attack Couturat
>>and Beaufront's personal character. They know that in a comparison on
>linguistic
>>grounds, Ido would outshine E-o in 90% of the points where they differ.


>Ah yes.  So that *was* the purpose of your post.  Since you know that the
>supposed self-evident superiority of Ido over Esperanto is by no means so
>easy to prove, you choose to attack Esperantists through an ad hominem
>attack on some Esperantist or other.

No, my defenses of Ido over Esperanto are not "through an ad hominem
attack on some Esperantist or other." They have always been on linguistic
grounds. It is _Esperantists_ who attack Beaufront or Couturat rather than
finding justifications for the unjustififiable: crazy diacritical marks,
a useless -n ending, superfluous agreement, etc.

If you can ever find a place where I stated that BECAUSE Dalton was a
vicious ad-hominem attacker, I dislike Esperanto, I would like to see it.
However, I have yet to see anyone who is not a convinced Esperantist already
that is convinced by the sort of arguments that you and Waringhien (as quoted
by Harlow) have put up on the WWW.

And not only I, but also Mark Vines, Phil Hunt, and probably others whose names
do not occur to me, have seen the _same_ factors as deficiencies in E-o. In
particular, Phil and I differ in many ways, but we come to the same conclusions
(he posted an article on alt.language.artificial months ago) on the defects
of E-o. Take ff your blinders. You will see that the arguments you put up on
your page do not convince ANYONE who comes into the question without preconcep-
tions in favor of Esperanto.

>For those who actually wish to compare the two languages, please take a
>look at my comparison

>       <http://southern.edu/~caviness/Eo_unue/kritikoj.html#Ido

Yes. Please do. Then go and look at some of the things that such eminent
linguists as Otto Jespersen have said, for example:

http://www.yi.com/home/ChandlerJames/AILcase.html

>It is not intended to be "anti-Ido" in tone, merely to put to rest the
>eternal statement that "Ido is an obvious improvement on Esperanto".  The
>languages are very similar, yet differ in certain ways.  Some changes
>appear to be changes only for the sake of change.  Some are quite possibly
>improvements.  Some are, IMO, changes for the worse, dropping features
>quite valuable in an IAL.

"Features quite valuable in an IAL," which most IAL-creators find to be
without value, and which, consequently, have been dropped by all subsequent
IALs.

>Note that I say "In My Opinion"!  I do not expect everyone to agree with
>me, but then again, I'm only challenging the absolutely unsupportable
>statement that

>>in a comparison on linguistic
>>grounds, Ido would outshine E-o in 90% of the points where they differ.

>Surely at this point we can all admit that there are pros and cons to the
>various planlingvoj?  Although on the balance, I prefer Esperanto's design
>over that of others I've studied, I don't view *any* of these differences
>as enough to "make or break" the language.

While I think some of them are, and all of them to the breaking of E-o.

>For newcomers who haven't yet taken the time to browse through some of the
>arguments against E-o which have been seen on this list, feel free to stop by

>     <http://www.southern.edu/~caviness/Eo_unue/Eo_unue.html

And then go to http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3141/debates.html please!

                                Bruce R. Gilson
                                email: [log in to unmask] or [log in to unmask]
                                IRC: EZ-as-pi
                                WWW: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3141
                                (for language stuff: add /langpage.html)