On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 23:07 -0400, Andrew wrote: > Good evening Rob, > > > Rob van Nieuwkerk wrote: > > > > I think it is good to quote the *relevant* part of the posting you are > > replying to in a reply: > > > > - it makes a reply easier to understand: you can put your reply lines > > exactly under the right line of the original text if necessary. > > > > Rather than making it easier to understand, the quote only provides immediate > context. Sometimes that makes things easier to understand, but sometimes not. > This, however, is not a forum for a discussion of epistemology. Well you made me look that one up - not a word an engineer uses a lot... According to Principia Cybernetica - first Google entry: Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge. It attempts to answer the basic question: what distinguishes true (adequate) knowledge from false (inadequate) knowledge? > snip < > I doubt however, that an appeal to > etiquette could be legitimately sustained when one considers that the use of > humor while correcting another is indistinguishable from sarcasm. Been on both ends of that one. > Finally, let me apologize for committing one of the greatest sins against mailing list > etiquette, i.e., hijacking the thread. -- Think that had already happened at least once before you jumped in, but guess I just compounded the sin. ;^) Thanks for the linguistic refresher. These hijacked threads can occasionally yield some enlightenment. Phil