The Wanderer <wande...@fastmail.fm> writes: > While I see the perspective which leads you to that statement, I don't > think that's strictly correct.
> The way I usually put it is that "if you expect to be excused because of > it, it's an excuse". > Some excuses are valid, mind. That doesn't mean they aren't excuses. I guess I'm finding it quite remarkable how much concerted effort seems to be going into try to make me feel ashamed of my behavior in some way, which is how I read "feel like excuses." Regardless of what sort of definitional argument you're trying to make here, that's not a term that you use when you're trying to convey the message "I see where you're coming from and why your position seems justified to you." It's a phrase that you use to express that you think other people's arguments are illegitimate, and usually to try to shame people into agreeing with you. Maybe this is less obvious because I'm trying to engage with the underlying thought process here, but this thread has been rather aggressively antagonistic and has attributed all sorts of awful behavior to others. I'm not sure what people expect to see as a result when that's the tone of the discussion? I think people are trying to express a lot of frustration, so I'm trying to be sympathetic, but that doesn't mean I think this type of criticism is warranted, constructive, or a reasonable way to treat other people. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
