On 2002.02.17 16:50:32 +0100 Wendell Cochran wrote:
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 03:52:42 +0100
Carel Fellinger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> :
> > > > and here is really no interest in ridiculing anyone and less
someone who would formulate constructively his criticism and suggestions
...
>> i really really don't want you to construe this as any kind of
xenophobia,
>> but this phrase above just doesn't work in english. i have no idea
what you
>> meant to convey by this.
> I admit, I'm no english man, but the sentence you fail to parse seem
> clear as can be to my foreign eyes:) Or were you just kidding?
> To me it says, that we on this list have no interest in ridiculing
> anyone, and especially not someone that formulates his criticism and
> suggestions in a constructive way.
As an editor I spend my life trying to understand what a writer is
trying to say. (That includes writers whose first language is not
English.)
Despite decades of practice, the lines marked >>>> defeated me. They
still
do.
As another non-native speaker, having seen the solution, I can see how it
would mean that, if you insert "interest in ridiculing" between "less" and
"someone". This sort of, kind of, can be done in dutch, which is probably
why it makes some sense to me (and to Carel).
Matijs.
