rhetorician

1,420 reputation

bio	website
	location	Pittsburgh, PA
	age	63
visits	member for	5 months
	seen	7 secs ago
stats	profile views	90

For the last 55 years, I have been a practicing Christian (liberally conservative and evangelical). Should any posting I make to the ELU website pique your curiosity as to the what and why of my beliefs, feel free to communicate with me at drlarter@yahoo.com. I do not claim to have all the answers--let alone all the questions(!), but I would consider it a privilege to discuss Christianity with you in a rational and civilized fashion.

My wife (a native Egyptian and Christian) and I have been married almost 40 years. We have two grown children who have flown the coop, making us empty nesters.

I have a Master's degree in Speech Communications and three years of doctoral studies in Rhetorical Theory at the University of Pittsburgh. After a brief stint as a teacher of public speaking, I embarked on a couple of different and totally divergent pursuits by owning and operating two small businesses.

Tired of being in business for myself, I went back to school at Duquesne University's Paralegal Institute in Pittsburgh, where I hope to be certified as a paralegal and then land a job in the legal field to round out the last stage of my work life.

A rhetorical perspective is almost as natural to me as breathing. Overt and covert attempts at persuasion, whether written or spoken, are my legitimate targets for analysis, evaluation, and criticism. Of particular interest to the EL&U web site contributors would be, with some adaptations and modifications, the traditional canons of speech: style (elocutio), invention (inventio), organization (dispositio), memorability (memoria), and delivery (actio) .

	1,420 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	5 months
17 badges		location	Pittsburgh, PA		seen	7 secs ago

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5h	comment	“Ten times fewer the number,” versus “one-tenth the number”? @Colin Fine: "Language has very little to do with logic"? Oh contraire, mon frère! While language can be quite illogical, with all those "exceptions" to the rules (in grammar, punctuation, spelling, verb tenses, and more), logic could not exist without language. If there is no language, there is no thought. If there is no thought, there is no logic. Where do these statements place me within the plethora of schools of philosophy? I haven't a clue, but I'm pretty sure those statements contain at least some validity, if not veracity.
5h	comment	“Ten times fewer the number,” versus “one-tenth the number”? @Colin Fine: Yes, I would still object! I think User58220 is on the right track--if not at the destination itself!
6h	comment	“Ten times fewer the number,” versus “one-tenth the number”? @User58220: Your correction is correct. Thank you. I did go back and make a few corrections myself, particularly with the numbers I carelessly bandied about. I THINK I agree with Colin Fine that 10 times fewer is, perhaps, readily understandable. About the only way to prove him right (or wrong) is to give a random sample of people (not mathematicians) an actual question involving numbers and the locution "ten times fewer." I also agree, I think, with your statement about "a property called 'fewness,' that can be possessed in different degrees." I need to let that percolate a bit!
7h	revised	“Ten times fewer the number,” versus “one-tenth the number”? Fixed some incorrect numbers.
8h	asked	“Ten times fewer the number,” versus “one-tenth the number”?
9h	comment	Does English have half-graded antonyms? @Bradd Szonye: Love as an absolute attribute of God has no comparative form. How the analog of that love is fleshed out in human beliefs and behaviors, however, does have comparative forms. Hitler loved himself and his ideas about his "master race," but Mother Theresa loved even the poorest of the poor. Now THERE is a contrast for you! Who, I ask, was more loving? As an afterthought, I find it interesting (and somewhat ironic) that there are folks who with a straight face say, "There are no absolutes," or "There is no such thing as absolutes." My response: "Is that an absolute?!"
13h	comment	Does English have half-graded antonyms? My point in essence is this: to be able to compare one thing to another, there seems to be a need for an anchor, however imperfect it may be, for a basis of comparison. Plato had his "forms," which is a good start. The human conscience, however imperfect it may be, has its notion of right and wrong. In fact, C.S. Lewis, the esteemed scholar, writer, and popularizing "theologian" has said that right and wrong are a clue to the meaning of the universe ("Mere Christianity"). Bradd used the term "absolute," so I riffed on it. My answer stands or falls on its merits, if there be any.
22h	answered	Does English have half-graded antonyms?
1d	revised	I can't make heads or tails out of this paragraph. It's a complex pun. (Warning: Mildly “bad language” and urban lingo)) Tidied it up with some deletions, additions, corrections.
1d	answered	Understanding sentences with double-negation
1d	comment	Litotes: Always for Emphasis? Used for Non-committal Hedging? Any Authoritative Source? @Robusto: To be honest, I need you to paraphrase your comment, as I'm having no small amount of difficulty in understanding it! Thanks for the up-vote!
1d	revised	Litotes: Always for Emphasis? Used for Non-committal Hedging? Any Authoritative Source? Improved formatting and correction of a few typos.
2d	comment	It's like indecisive but more conflicted I, too, like vacillating. How about double-minded?
2d	comment	Looking for a word that means the opposite of 'gilded' The story of "The Rich Man and Lazarus" is illustrative of the opposite of gilded (see Luke 16:19-31). On the one hand, you have a well-to-do member of the gentry, who from all outward appearances has everything he wants and needs. On the other hand you have a poor, pathetic beggar with ugly sores all over his body, who from all appearances has nothing to recommend him. Who goes to paradise? The rich man? No, Lazarus does. Which goes to show that just as surely as the proud will someday be abased, so too someday will the humble be exalted--albeit not necessarily in this lifetime!
2d	comment	Looking for a word that means the opposite of 'gilded' In the "for what it's worth" department: The late country music singer/songwriter Johnny Cash had a song that went: "I'm just an old chunk of coal now, Lord, but I'm gonna be a diamond some day." What Cash is saying, I think, is that he's far from perfect now, but just as the combination of carbon + pressure + eons = a diamond, likewise he will, through a transformative process, emerge as a diamond one day. Or to change the metaphor, today on the outside he's a pauper, but inside is a prince waiting to come out.
2d	comment	what word means the thing you 'added' @Cerberus: Except when "codicil" is used in an almost metaphorical--but surely analogical--fashion, as in polymath Kenneth Burke's "Definition of Man," which ends with ". . . and rotten with perfection," which he refers to (probably with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek) as his "wry codicil." His definition, by the way, is a pretty good one. It's not perfect, but then what is?
2d	comment	what word means the thing you 'added' @TrevorD: You got me. Here I am, confronted by the big guns and all I have is a peashooter. Oh well, here goes anyway: dictionary.reference.com/browse/codicil?db=dictionary, where a codicil is defined in part as "any supplement; appendix." The same "authority" also defines an addendum as a thing to be added, an appendix, a supplement. I feel so ashamed!
2d	answered	I can't make heads or tails out of this paragraph. It's a complex pun. (Warning: Mildly “bad language” and urban lingo))
2d	comment	Is “emptiest” a logically correct term? Even to say, "She has a singular intellect" is not only stating the obvious, but it is also kind of audacious in that the statement presumes one has examined every person in the world and concluded "she," of all humanity, is one-of-a-kind intellectually. Of course, one can approach scientifically this question of intellect by conducting a study of a given number of subjects, complete with a protocol (a null hypothesis, a control group, accurate measurements, and so on) that reduces the possibility of inaccuracy and bias, but still, each subject's intellectual acumen is inexorably unique.
2d	comment	Is “emptiest” a logically correct term? @EdwinAshworth: You say "most unique" is wrong, and I'm pretty sure I agree with you. Unique is one word I seldom use. Uniqueness is part and parcel of being, whether you are a person, place or thing. From "no two snowflakes are exactly alike," to "no two persons are exactly alike," to "no two places are exactly alike." Who said, "You do, and do not, step into the same river twice"? A preacher once said, "God does not make duplicates; only originals." Each person is unique, each in his or her own way. To say someone is unique is to state the obvious.