Interesting argument.  Thanks.  Of course, everyone uses the same set of
muscles.  Professional athletes are distinguished as groups by particular
skills and procedures that they usually can describe in some detail.  But
I don't discount the force of your analogy.

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Richard Veit, UNCW English Department wrote:

> At 01:29 PM 02/15/2001 -0600, David D Mulroy wrote:
> >...Is there any other field where you can supposedly excel while referring
> >to the tools of your trade as whatchamacallits?
>
> Professional athletes do pretty well without knowing the names of the
> muscles they use, nor without a conscious understanding of how they
> coordinate various muscles to do what they do. Language is one of many
> skills that rely on unconscious knowledge, like running or jumping. An
> athlete may gain some advantage by studying physiology, and a speaker may
> gain some advantage by studying grammar, but many others do just fine
> without that conscious knowledge.
>
> Dick Veit
>
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