Herb is the voice of sanity! Thank you for this thoughtful post. 
   
  I suspect that my message on civility may have been misunderstood. I wrote it with the desire to reveal how intentions might have been misunderstood by the choices made in previous postings and to show why some of us felt insulted when there may have been no intention to insult. I certainly do not intend to silence Eduard's important voice; rather I hope to help him make it more accessible to us all. In part, I felt a need to point out to him what he might not have been aware of in the tone of his e-mails, so that he might change the tone without changing the content.
   
  I agree wholeheartedly with Herb that we need to hear this particular voice; but it is clear that if the voice appears to be harsh or insulting, we won't listen. Please accept my apology if I seemed too harsh myself.
   
  Paul D.
   
  
"Stahlke, Herbert F.W." <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
        v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}  .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}        st1\:*{behavior:url(#default#ieooui) }                Like many of us, I suspect, I’ve been giving some thought to our recent experience with Eduard Hanganu.  While it is unquestionably true that he has insulted people on the list and that he has, to a lesser degree than he claims, been treated roughly by some of us, I think there is an important side to the entire experience of the last few weeks that has been missed.  Eduard’s presence represents the world that we work in breaking in upon our discussions.  The findings of linguistic, sociolinguistic, and educational research that inform our discussions of language variation, dialect, correctness, appropriateness, and related issues are not findings that are widely known or accepted beyond language specialists.  Many of us have lamented the prevalence of myth and
 misinformation about language among the general public and especially in school boards, PTAs, and even Colleges of Education and Departments of English.  What we haven’t come up with is a good information strategy to combat this misinformation and to correct the ill effects of it.  In some of the earlier discussions of the New Public Grammar, this need has been discussed, but even there little progress has been made.  The laudable work on scope and sequence is valuable but only builds a common body of pedagogical theory and content that we can agree on among ourselves.  It doesn’t address the problems of the audiences we have to present it to and convince.
   
  Eduard represents that audience:  intelligent, articulate, passionate about education, but whose views of language have not been affected by the linguistic and sociolinguistic research of the past half century and more.  It’s not that people like Eduard are wrong on a few points.  It’s rather that Eduard has a coherent view of language, society, and education that appeals to a certain elitism in society and that holds fast to measures of correctness that serve as gateways to success.  In my undergrad Language and Society classes we get to a certain point where I ask my students to consider implications of their command of standard English, to use a term which I acknowledge to be problematical, compared to that of their high school classmates who didn’t go on to post-secondary education.  This leads usually to a fairly incisive discussion of the ways in which Standard English and beliefs about it serve as a gateway to achievement in American society.  Certainly, one can ach!
 ieve
 career and financial success without a good command of it; just watch local ads by car dealers and carpet merchants.  But it takes remarkable ability to do so.  Those who succeed at the English standards that are expected have doors open to them more easily.
   
  Eduard’s presence among us is an opportunity to talk with someone whose background, interests, and opinions represent the very audience we need to be addressing, and I fear we have shown our lack of preparation for this task.  We have to expect our ideas to be attacked.  They threaten dearly held cultural beliefs, as we have all seen on many other occasions.  And for that very reason we can’t expect such discussions to proceed without some rough spots.  But we are the ones trying to change these attitudes, and that places a special responsibility on us.  The painful lesson of these past few weeks is that we haven’t risen well to that challenge.
   
  Our task is much more than an academic and pedagogical one, as crucial as that part of it is; our task has an even more important political and social public relations side to it, and that’s the kind of activity we academics are too ready to neglect, sometimes to the point of disdain.
   
  Herb
   
      
---------------------------------
  
  From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Paul E. Doniger
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 11:45 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Civility

   
    Between a very long self-defense and very short general apology, Eduard Hanganu wrote: "It makes me sad to see how biased people can be, and how unfair. Is is (sic)possible that out of 250 people on this mail list nobody has seen how *rude* and *offensive* Johanna Rubba has been towards me under the false pretense of promoting fairness, decency, and civilized  dialogue on this forum?"

     

    It seems to me that Mr. Hanganu is unaware of how biased and unfair he appears to be in many of his own comments on this list. Perhaps a few examples might help him understand why we are all rushing to Johanna's well-deserved defense (and sometimes as well to our own defenses). As one who has felt personally insulted by Mr. Hanganu, perhaps I have a stake in presenting some of these examples, and perhaps I could begin by offering him the benefit that I suspect he is unaware of the insults! we feel and that he did not intend them to be insulting.

     

    Here are a few:

    
   "Forgive me, but your perspective (and Craig's also) reflects the provincial attitude so common in this country among the English teachers and linguistists (sic)."
    I've already responded personally (and I might add with good humor) to this. I still doubt the accuracy of calling me provincial; after all, Mr. Hanganu does not know me from Adam. I don't know, by the way, that there is any statistical evidence to support the claim that such provincialism is common among my colleagues or among American linguists generally. Also, I might point out that my previous response did not point out his constant misspelling of the word "linguists."

    
   "Probably you don't know too much about the L'Academie Francaise, the Romanian Academy on Language, and other academic forums in Europe which have been regulating language (structure and use) for centuries."
    My last response should have proven this hasty assumption to be a fallacy. I have some knowledge of the history of language, and I am well aware of the academies. My opinion of such academies, I admit, is not as high as Mr. Hanangu's opinion, but that is beside the point. The comment would have not been so insulting had the word 'probably' been replaced with 'perhaps', for he does not know what my education consists of. There's not enough space here to fill in that lack of information.

    
   "The United States has practically no history compared with Europe. My country goes back TWO THOUSAND years, and most contries (sic) in Europe have as much history also."
    Now this is a curious statement. I'm not sure what "no history" is intended to mean, but the chauvinism is so obvious in this statement (emphasized by the all capitals) that I'm surprised it did not jump out of the screen and smack Mr. Hanangu in the face. Doe! s he really think that he is better than me because his continent has an older history than my country? My ancestors go back to Europe and the Middle East. We have a history that's over four thousand years and spoke, in different eras of our history, English, Polish, Russian, Yiddish, Spanish, and Hebrew (and perhaps other languages, too). Does that mean I am better than he is? I would never make such a rude assumption.

    
   "The idea that the 'native speaker knows more grammar than has ever 
been printed in any grammar books' is PURE NONSENSE."
    The capitals again provide the insult. One can disagree with the concept, but here Mr. Hanangu clearly calls the holders of this idea (like perhaps Johanna Rubba, Herb Stahlke, Craig Hancock, [I'd add 'me', but I'm not in their linguistic league], ... ) nonsensical. Argue the merits of the idea, not the intelligence of the people who hold it. This is called an Ad Hominem fallacy. It's al! so insulting.

    
   "I believe that a less provincial perspective, a better understanding about how other languages function will protect us from a narrow and much too confident notion that the way language is handled in the United States is the best way."
    Although the words "I believe" help to soften this insult, there are three problems with this comment. first it suggest that the rest of have little understanding of the functions of languages; then that we are narrow minded and cocky. Finally, it assumes that we all believe that only citizens of the USA know how to "handle" language (whatever that means). Perhaps there are some of us who do think that way, but I would be hard pressed to know who they are from my near decade long involvement with the members of this assembly. Certainly, I am sure that I don't think that way. I never looked on linguistics as a nationalistic study. Who does? I would like to know.

    T! here are five example here from only a single posting by Mr. Hanangu. I would not be so rude as to try to match his 13 misrepresentations of Johanna's postings in his recent "apology." I'm sure I could find more, but I don't have the time or the interest right now. 

     

    My one hope is that he see this not in the apparently paranoid fashion that I have inferred from his last posting, but in the spirit that it was intended: That is to return to thoughtful and civil discussion of the issues that we are all interested in. Remember the Greek origin of the term argument is clarification, not diatribe.

     

    Let's return to argument.

     

    Paul D.

  

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