From: Richard Wallis <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Feeding the "Brad" troll: Just don't do it!
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Sunday, April 12, 2009, 1:07 PM

Surely you all recognize by now the actions of an Internet troll. Why do you continue to engage it in discussion? 

 

Internet trolls thrive on calling attention to themselves and to their own peculiar ideas. They will never change their tactics, and they will never concede anything. Every mailing list seems to have one or two of these sociopaths. They enjoy the frustration and infuriation that their endlessly repeated postings cause.

 

Brad Johnston, who lives in Warrenton, Virginia, is 78 years old (born on December 18). He is not a linguist; in fact, he was probably never an English teacher. He apparently doesn't have a graduate degree. He was in the class of 1952 at Wabash College (Indiana) and a member of something called the Sphinx Club there. He attended Shortridge High School in Indianapolis.

 

I cannot begin to understand why respected teachers and linguists continue to respond at all to him. You are giving him the attention and "respect" that he so desperately craves -- and that he apparently lacks elsewhere in his sad little life.

 

Don't feed the troll!!