there is something that smells in asian game.

[Bantari]

[German dictionaries tend to be very selective. 1) They cover mostly standard / the most common words to fit a given number of pages. 2) The education of the writers and editors of such dictionaries is somewhat prejudiced by their own background. 3) Dictionaries tend to be delayed WRT to new language developments.

In summary, in most cases I trust my own knowledge of German vocabulary more than German dictionaries.

So, let me summarize now:

You don't trust dictionaries, since they are selective and possibly biased.
You don't trust dictionary writes since they are uneducated, even if they possibly spent more time researching the issue than you.
You don't trust other native German speakers since they don't know much, even though they lived in the same country as you for possibly larger number of years.
You trust yourself over anything else.

But tell me - why should your 'experience' trump anybody else's 'experience'?
Subjectively, I understand, but I thought you were trying to make an objective point here. Instead, it seems to me that what you are really saying is that you 'know better than anybody, and unless somebody agrees with you they are plain wrong, just because!' Well, all I can say is - this is certainly an interesting way to go through life.

It sure explains why it is so hard to convince you of anything.

PS>
About dictionaries:
I would tend to agree with you about what you say about them, if we were discussing a single specific dictionary. However, I would assume that something of value can be learned by looking at a number of different sources. If all/most of them agree on something, this is certainly a good indication. Are you really going to make ME do this research? Its your claim, why don't you try to support it better than with "because I think so.' I don't really have a stake here, just curious.

Or, better yet, lets drop this issue. It really does not have much to do with the thread.

[RobertJasiek]

I absolutely don't see your objection here.

Once more: My objection is that never should a player be punished by a game loss or by harsher punishments ("justified" on the grounds of fake unsportsmanship) for making legal moves and especially not for making such legal moves that are perfect play! (The worst acceptable treatment is altering time limits or continuing on neutralized time if the tournament rules have had such a provision.)

[RobertJasiek]

You don't trust dictionaries, since they are selective and possibly biased.

Wrong. - Usually I don't trust German dictionaries as much as myself about whether a word (in a specific meaning) exists.

(Examples: 1) The standard spelling reference Duden delayed inclusion of the word Plotter for ca. 15 years after I had known its existence (and enjoyed usage of such objects...). 2) Duden failed to admit the existence of the plural Universen, presumably because the Duden writers had not read modern discussions of certain astronomic theories. I knew it better also because I had read such theories. 3) Do you find Komi in German language dictionaries? No? Does it thus not exist? LOL.)

It sure explains why it is so hard to convince you of anything.

Indeed, it is hard to convince me of something that I do know better:)

why don't you try to support it better than with "because I think so.'

I have already supported it better by mentioning my empirical evidence of language usage as I have heard it.

To keep this OT answer short, I omit similar answers to your other remarks.

[jts]

I absolutely don't see your objection here.

Once more: My objection is that never should a player be punished by a game loss or by harsher punishments ("justified" on the grounds of fake unsportsmanship) for making legal moves and especially not for making such legal moves that are perfect play! (The worst acceptable treatment is altering time limits or continuing on neutralized time if the tournament rules have had such a provision.)

Has anyone taken the position that explicitly legal, but unsportsmanlike, moves (or other behavior) should be punished by forfeit? I think your interlocutors have been taking the following positions (which I would agree with):

(i) Trying to win on time is less sportsmanlike than trying to win on points after two passes.
(ii) In particularly blatant cases, persisting in trying to win a game on time (when all hope of winning after two passes is gone) is very bad sportsmanship.
(iii) When rules are unclear, ambiguous, or intentionally leave discretion to the referee, the referee should weigh good sportsmanship when he applies the rules.

Now, you seem to be insisting on a different point; if we think a certain sort of behavior is bad sportsmanship, then we ought to have a rule against it. But as things stand, we don't have rules against every form of bad sportsmanship, nor is it possible even in concept (for example, could you have explicit rules about what counts as disrupting a game that cover every conceivable case? It requires the ref to apply the concept of "disruption", and that requires that he understand good sportsmanship...), nor would it be desirable even if it were possible (because the rules promote other goods, too, like timely completion of tournaments). So even if there ought to be more rules which explicitly require good sportsmanship, -iii- will still be true; that is, -iii- is not just conditional on imperfect rule sets.

It's not quite clear to me whether you think Sportlichkeit is the same as sportsmanship, or that sportsmanship is the same as Sportlichkeit! It seemed to me that you were at first arguing that "sportsmanship" actually means that someone is "sporty", that is to say, they try their darnedest to win (a win is a win!). Then when your interlocutors assumed you just didn't know what "sportsmanship" means to an English speaker, you informed them that the word exists in other languages, or at least Deutsch; and then when Daal (and others) insisted that "Sportlichkeit" is the substantive of "sportlich" and thus a false cognate for "sportsmanship", you insisted that "Sportlichkeit" doesn't mean behavior which is "sportlich." So which is it...?

[RobertJasiek]

(i) Trying to win on time is less sportsmanlike than trying to win on points after two passes.

Unless tournament rules have specified something else, my opinion is: Winning on time is exactly as sportsmanlike as winning on the board.

(ii) In particularly blatant cases, persisting in trying to win a game on time (when all hope of winning after two passes is gone) is very bad sportsmanship.

As before. However, usually there is some tournament rule or even just an implied verbal context tournament rule specifying something else. Then my answer depends on what that tournament rule expresses.

(iii) When rules are unclear, ambiguous, or intentionally leave discretion to the referee, the referee should weigh good sportsmanship when he applies the rules.

Yes, but only as one of the last resorts, i.e., if softer referee decisions like declaring that the fault lies within ambiguity of the rules or the organization cannot be applied meaningfully. E.g., if there should be no rule for long cycles and the game outcome depends on which moves are legal in a long cycle ko, then the fault lies in the rules and the referee should declare a default jigo or something similar.

[tapir]

Trying to prove Robert Jasiek wrong seems to be a shared obsession. I do not want to interfere in this to much, but be assured it is not about language knowledge (even if all those foreigners like me are indeed mishandling english language).

Maybe you can fully appreciate this only if you're a native German speaker...

[John Fairbairn]

Maybe you can fully appreciate this only if you're a native German speaker...

You seem to me to be hinting at the stereotypes of Germany: e.g. everything is verboten unless expressly allowed. I don't believe too much in stereotypes, but if this is something like what you are suggesting, I assume you are arguing that it explains Robert's position - everything (or as much as possible) has to be legislated for. That has, indeed, been a common theme of his over the years. But sportsmanship cannot be legislated for anyway, by definition, and many of us are happy to tolerate the odd dispute if that means we can use a less onerous set of rules. There is no right or wrong in this - it boils down to a majority versus a minority.

I think you misread what people are saying to Robert. They are not trying to prove him wrong. In fact most people understand perfectly that he is trying to achieve something that has, if not merit, at least integrity. I feel rather that most of the time people are trying to overcome a certain stubbornness, or perhaps just forgetfulness (e.g. he is told time after time that his use of sportsmanship is wrong but he insists, as in his latest post, in clinging to it). It makes it hard to get people to accept his views if he interposes such a barrier. But most contributors here are (in my view) really trying to get him to pull down such barriers so they can better listen to what he has to say. He needs to talk the same language as his audience.

[RobertJasiek]

1) German law works more like "It is allowed what is not forbidden (and does not violate other principles of law)." while there are so many laws that the joke "Everything is forbidden." can be understood:)

2) Language is not a one-sided affair of "Audience prescribes, speaker abides.". Rather every group of people knows a different subset of the language; if the audience's and the speaker's subsets differ, then then speaker can explain his usage of language. (Heiner Geißler exemplified this process very well in the S21 meetings.)

[John Fairbairn]

Rather every group of people knows a different subset of the language; if the audience's and the speaker's subsets differ, then then speaker can explain his usage of language.

You drive on the right. You can come to England's motorways and try that, but don't be surprised to end up to end up as strawberry jam.

[John Fairbairn]

Robert:

As you mention the law a lot, take this from Alice in the Looking Glass.

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’ ”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them —particularly verbs, they’re the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”

According to Wikipedia, this passage was used in Britain by Lord Atkin and in his dissenting judgement in the seminal case Liversidge v. Anderson (1942), where he protested about the distortion of a statute by the majority of the House of Lords. It also became a popular citation in United States legal opinions, appearing in 250 judicial decisions in the Westlaw database as of April 19, 2008, including two Supreme Court cases (TVA v. Hill and Zschernig v. Miller).

In short, it's a significant issue, but it seems Alice is meant to be the heroine.

[RobertJasiek]

1) Sportlichkeit: Its sportsmanship meaning exists regardless of whether one particular person uses it. So your citation, which suggests invention of a meaning, does not apply.

2) There is the question how far (if at all) sportsmanship shall override application of rules of play. This is answered differently in different tournaments / associations / federations. E.g., the EGF General Tournament Rules put the rules of play before sportsmanship. E.g., German Championship rulesets have a coexistence of verbal rules of play and sportsmanship. I am not sure yet how exactly the relation is for this thread's dispute. I think though that it is desirable to establish a setting for world-level international tournament rules and that that ought to be clear enough to be predictable for the players.

[jts]

Maybe you can fully appreciate this only if you're a native German speaker...

You seem to me to be hinting at the stereotypes of Germany: e.g. everything is verboten unless expressly allowed.

I took Tapir's claim to be "only if you are a native German speaker can you understand that Mr. Jasiek's idiosyncratic take on what words mean does not flow from his unfamiliarity with foreign languages."

[Kirby]

In my mind, the purpose of communication is to exchange thoughts, and in some cases, ways of thought. From this perspective, I think that the "true" meaning of a word does not matter. A word is just a tool to portray your thought - or to come to understand the thoughts of others.

In that sense, if you want another person to understand you, more than determining a "true" meaning of a word, I think that it's best to adapt to the person you want to communicate with. Similarly, if you want to understand another person, if it's possible, regardless of the words being used, try to understand the thought they are really trying to portray.

If you don't care about the thoughts of others, or about real communication in general... Well, then that's a different story.

[hyperpape]

The two worst ways to determine the meaning of a word are
(1) referencing a dictionary
(2) saying that you're confident you know what it means.

I will not try to say which one is worse.

Either one works just fine where the meaning of a word is simple and uncontroversial, but where there is disagreement, they fail. Sometimes with (2) you will be right, but you're obviously not going to convince anyone that way, and of course sometimes you'll be wrong and 100% sure that you're right.

How do you demonstrate what a word means? More or less, you go out and look. Find competent speakers using the word and see how they do it. You can also construct hypothetical examples and hope that the person you're talking to will agree that they're right--this can work, especially where someone is proposing a silly grammatical rule, but there's always a bit of luck involved. Of course, there can be tricky cases: how many people have to misuse "begging the question" before the meaning changes? But the basic model is to check actual usage.

This is all linguistics 101 type stuff, mind you...

P.S. I thought about writing this post two days ago, but thought it would be boorish. I should have known the topic would linger.

[John Fairbairn]

In that sense, if you want another person to understand you, more than determining a "true" meaning of a word, I think that it's best to adapt to the person you want to communicate with. Similarly, if you want to understand another person, if it's possible, regardless of the words being used, try to understand the thought they are really trying to portray.

This is not an either-or or both-and, really. It's a yes-no. The first method is objectively good and works with all except with the most obtuse. The second method works only on a hit-and-miss basis, and, in a forum, has the added danger that the eager-to-please listener is seen as seeking to be holier-than-thou ("I'm patient enough to try to understand, you're not").

If one person wants to communicate with 10,000 and he lazily or unimaginatively uses his own unidiomatic terms, technical jargon, waffle or gibbersih, he is not going to be very successful if he he expects many of them to make an effort to work out what he is saying. One initial effort by one person is bound to be more efficient than 10,000 later efforts. Further, if he adapts to his target audience, he can be reasonably sure they have understood him as well as listened to him.

The touchy-feely second method is suitable only in a few cases. One is dealing with people who may not be as linguistically competent as we'd nornally expect, say young children. I don't think such people would welcome being patronised in public in a forum, so it's not appropriate here. Another situation may be where you want to be a guru and try to attract a following by saying mystical things. You may have some success - some people do indeed answer spam, and there are always those who have a special glow because they think they've divined the true meaning. But not only is that not appropriate here, I don't have a sense that many people here are spam openers (indeed, there are already pro-active readers who eliminate certain threads or block certain posters).

The halfway point of defining your terms and then using them and expecting others to use them is also inefficient. How many are going look up and try to remmeber the definitions beyond the initial launch? It can work in a book, just, where you can (but only if you choose) have a fixed point of reference on your shelf. But never in a voltaile thing like a forum. Also, psychologically, it is also likely to antogonise many. It's all very well for Euclid to define his axioms first, but that approach is irrelevant to much of life, and to try to impose it risks alienation.

It's much, much wiser just to speak the common language, and to go with the flow in coping with its inefficiencies. You get there in the end. As Takagawa noted, that is good for a go style as well: be like water, going round obstacles or being patient till you can.