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Esperanto a waste of time?

 Language Learning Forum : Esperanto Post Reply
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Hoogamagoo
Diglot
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United States
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14 posts - 70 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto

 
 Message 305 of 351
23 November 2010 at 10:30pm | IP Logged 
Juаn wrote:
It is effortless to be intolerant towards something one
knows, cares and understands nothing about.


...fixed that for ya.


1 person has voted this message useful



Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5353 days ago

727 posts - 1830 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*

 
 Message 306 of 351
23 November 2010 at 10:39pm | IP Logged 
Hoogamagoo wrote:
Juаn wrote:
It is effortless to be intolerant towards something one
knows, cares and understands nothing about.


...fixed that for ya.



That's a fanatic's viewpoint, and part of what turns many off Esperanto. Either one accepts Esperanto or one is an adversary.

No one here has advocated the elimination of Esperanto or the persecution or segregation of its practitioners. That would be intolerance. Simply criticizing it is not.
3 persons have voted this message useful



Hoogamagoo
Diglot
Newbie
United States
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14 posts - 70 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto

 
 Message 307 of 351
23 November 2010 at 11:52pm | IP Logged 
Juan wrote:
Hoogamagoo wrote:
Juan wrote:
It is effortless to be in
tolerant towards something one
knows, cares and understands nothing about.


...fixed that for ya.



That's a fanatic's viewpoint, and part of what turns many off Esperanto. Either one
accepts Esperanto or one is an adversary.

No one here has advocated the elimination of Esperanto or the persecution or
segregation of its practitioners. That would be intolerance. Simply criticizing
it is not.


"Tolerant" might have been a poorly chosen word, then. You can't halfway tolerate. You
either tolerate or you don't. It's a logical impossibility, not a fanatical viewpoint.
I'm not suggesting that Esperanto must be accepted or embraced, anymore than you have
suggested that Esperanto must be eliminated.

Actually, in my experience, people who are ignorant of any given topic tend to be
intolerant rather than tolerant, (with a greater amount of ease), when they are
confronted with said topic. Without confrontation, they simply remain unaware of the
topic.

So, if I understand your drift, let me suggest the following adjustments:

It is effortless to remain ignorant of something that one knows nothing about.

It is effortless to be tolerant of something that one cares nothing about.

Those who know about AND care about a topic cannot be ignorant of it, by definition,
and must logically either tolerate it or not. How effortless this is relies on a
variety of variables, not the least of which is one's level of understanding of the
topic.

In my experience, (and I think world history generally backs me up here), those who
care about something and have limited understanding are more likely to find it
effortless to be intolerant of that something than those who care and have a greater
level of understanding.

There are exceptions, to that. And it's perfectly plausible that Esperanto could be
something that as one learns about it that one finds it increasingly more intolerable,
but the anecdotal evidence seems to argue against that. Oh, and there is some academic
evidence as well, but as has been demonstrated earlier in this forum (the list is pages
and pages behind this post) it is easy to discount it.





1 person has voted this message useful



Juаn
Senior Member
Colombia
Joined 5353 days ago

727 posts - 1830 votes 
Speaks: Spanish*

 
 Message 308 of 351
24 November 2010 at 12:26am | IP Logged 
So I can't simply dislike particular literary or musical genres, I must be "intolerant" of them?

I don't recall anyone ever accusing me of "intolerance" towards reguetón or Vonnegut.

This obsession over correct speech and correct observance of political correctness leaves a taste of detergent and makes Esperanto unpalatable to me even beyond the issues attestable to constructed languages.
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GREGORG4000
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5531 days ago

307 posts - 479 votes 
Speaks: English*, Finnish
Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French

 
 Message 309 of 351
24 November 2010 at 1:33am | IP Logged 
What's our definition of "tolerate" here? The word "tolerate", like the word "ignorant", has so many different meanings to different people, and I don't think either of those should be used in a serious argument.

In my opinion Esperanto is an interesting concept that could be done so much better; the agglutination aspect is fantastic, but cutting down on the consonant phonemes and removing the strong focus on Romance vocabulary would make it much better.

paranday wrote:
Esperanto is complete in a way that Esperanto deniers are not.

I have no idea what this means.
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Hoogamagoo
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 6559 days ago

14 posts - 70 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto

 
 Message 310 of 351
24 November 2010 at 1:38am | IP Logged 
Juаn wrote:
So I can't simply dislike particular literary or musical genres, I must
be "intolerant" of them?

I don't recall anyone ever accusing me of "intolerance" towards reguetón or Vonnegut.

This obsession over correct speech and correct observance of political correctness
leaves a taste of detergent and makes Esperanto unpalatable to me even beyond the
issues attestable to constructed languages.


Not political correctness. Just correctness. And Esperanto has little to do with it. I
just hate to see people express themselves poorly and then defend themselves. it's a
little embarrassing. I was really just trying to set you on the right track with my
previous post. It would be interesting if you could point out exactly where I suggested
that "not liking" is synonymous with "intolerant of."

You see, like and dislike are not synonyms for tolerate and not tolerate. Tolerate
comes from the Latin word for endurance. It means to endure or to bear

Rather than Vonnegut, you should try cyanide. It is possible to tolerate cyanide, but
that doesn't mean you like it. And in fact, most people can't tolerate very much
cyanide. Most people can tolerate chocolate, beans, meat and cheese with various
extremes of like and dislike associated with those items. Actually some people can't
tolerate chocolate, beans, meat or cheese, no matter how much they might like to.

If you prefer a social example, I know people who don't tolerate the presence of men in
the ladies room. I know others who tolerate it. Liking and disliking that scenario?
Well, that's different, isn't it?

Back to your literary example, I highly doubt you can't tolerate Vonnegut. There are
those who won't tolerate hate speech or nudity or sacrilegious texts. There are even
those who say they can't tolerate them, but they like them.

The way you attempted to use the word, "tolerate," suggests that you are using a common
scheme, which is acceptable but peculiar when used in the way you used it. The idea
that, for example, one accepts "Spanish," tolerates "Esperanto," and does not tolerate
"Pig Latin." This is, of course, perfectly normal, but it seemed exceedingly peculiar
to suggest that ignorant people were more likely to tolerate, since in this sense,
tolerance implies disapproval, which implies knowledge. Since disapproval could not
logically be on the table at that point, it stands to reason that you meant the more
literal meaning of the word. That's why I suggested a more accurate explanation of why
people don't mind Esperanto on the boards. I was merely trying to help you make a
stronger point.

Yet you keep turning my responses into a hyperfanatical defense of Esperanto?

Interesting that it's only because this is in the context of an Esperanto forum that
you associated an otherwise unrelated digression to this language. There are many
people who are completely ignorant of Esperanto who would also take issue with your
abuse of the English language.

It's not Esperanto that tastes like detergent here. It's me and my English.


2 persons have voted this message useful



GREGORG4000
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5531 days ago

307 posts - 479 votes 
Speaks: English*, Finnish
Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French

 
 Message 312 of 351
24 November 2010 at 1:50am | IP Logged 
paranday wrote:
It's a real language. Some appear in denial of this. Love it or hate it, it really doesn't matter. It's not going away.

This is a semantics argument again, because some people (I'm not one of them) believe that languages need irregularities, oddities, ancient history that's reflected in the vocabulary or honorifics, etc. The entire argument about whether Esperanto is a language is just a huge argument about what "being a language" entails, and it's pretty futile. In my definition of "language", Ithkuil is a real language, and it hasn't yet had any fluent speakers.

But I still don't get what you mean by "Esperanto deniers not being complete". Are they missing big chunks of their bodies?

Edited by GREGORG4000 on 24 November 2010 at 1:51am



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