07-24-2004, 11:56 PM
Hi,
I think we are mostly in agreement. The impression I got from your first post was that you were in complete agreement with the (usually academic) liberal attitude that everything on the net should be (1) free and (2) totally unrestricted. Those arguing that are usually old farts like me that remember the way things were. Unlike me, they blame the decline in the net not on the influx of a huge population but on the "commercial and government interests" that are somehow stifling the free interchange of information. But apparently I was reading into your post much more than you intended -- sorry.
As to the "amateur/professional" issue, as I said in my last post, "amateur" has slid in meaning over the years, but has held onto its old meaning as well. From M-W online dictionary, it is apparent that "amateur" can mean anything from devotee (implying a great deal of skill and knowledge), through dilettante (implying someone who just plays around with a subject and has neither in depth knowledge nor much interest), to tyro (one who has little knowledge or experience). Kandrathe's statement, in context, indicates that he is using the term in it's third, almost pejorative, meaning. Your reply confused me since you were apparently using the first meaning.
Part of the confusion comes from the way you echoed the contrast between "amateur" and "professional" that kandrathe used. For the two to be contrasted that way, only the third meaning of "amateur" makes sense. In that case, "professional" becomes synonymous with "competent", the implication that if one is good enough to get paid for something, then one has more or less mastered that thing -- which of course is nonsense, but language is seldom rational. The only other way in which "amateur" and "professional" could be used in contrast that I can think of is principally in sports, where a professional is one who gets paid and an amateur does not. That distinction was much more important back when the Olympics were restricted to "amateurs".
Hope that helped. The bill for the English lesson is being forwarded to you by e-mail :)
--Pete
I think we are mostly in agreement. The impression I got from your first post was that you were in complete agreement with the (usually academic) liberal attitude that everything on the net should be (1) free and (2) totally unrestricted. Those arguing that are usually old farts like me that remember the way things were. Unlike me, they blame the decline in the net not on the influx of a huge population but on the "commercial and government interests" that are somehow stifling the free interchange of information. But apparently I was reading into your post much more than you intended -- sorry.
As to the "amateur/professional" issue, as I said in my last post, "amateur" has slid in meaning over the years, but has held onto its old meaning as well. From M-W online dictionary, it is apparent that "amateur" can mean anything from devotee (implying a great deal of skill and knowledge), through dilettante (implying someone who just plays around with a subject and has neither in depth knowledge nor much interest), to tyro (one who has little knowledge or experience). Kandrathe's statement, in context, indicates that he is using the term in it's third, almost pejorative, meaning. Your reply confused me since you were apparently using the first meaning.
Part of the confusion comes from the way you echoed the contrast between "amateur" and "professional" that kandrathe used. For the two to be contrasted that way, only the third meaning of "amateur" makes sense. In that case, "professional" becomes synonymous with "competent", the implication that if one is good enough to get paid for something, then one has more or less mastered that thing -- which of course is nonsense, but language is seldom rational. The only other way in which "amateur" and "professional" could be used in contrast that I can think of is principally in sports, where a professional is one who gets paid and an amateur does not. That distinction was much more important back when the Olympics were restricted to "amateurs".
Hope that helped. The bill for the English lesson is being forwarded to you by e-mail :)
--Pete
How big was the aquarium in Noah's ark?