[thantor3]

Originally Posted by C Elegans

How strange. I obviously misunderstood it since I found to be very out-of-context

Yes, when I asked about my birth once, my mother made the same comment. *deep sigh*

Do you often make off-topic comments that do not refer to anything?

lol! Touché.

The statement did have a purpose, just not the one you anticipated.

However, I thought you had read the Reagan-thread since you referred to it, and in that thread and the following one, there was some strawman discussion about censorship going on, so I wanted to make sure that you didn't read only a few posts and then assumed that censorship and free speach had been used in order to defend the position that critisism of Reagan could be posted.

That’s reasonable.

You comment "please, spare me the righteous invectives about censorship" sounded to me as if it referred to something specific … I thought the use of the article "the" such as in "spare me the righteous invectives..." implicated it was a specific referral, whereas the wording "spare me righeous invectives..." or "spare me any righteous invectives" would not refer to anything specific. If some native English speaker would enlighten me I'd appreciate it.

Well there, little lady, yer in luck ‘cause I just happen to be yor basic native Engleash speaker right here.

To go right to the source (i.e. The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition): An article is a limiting adjective that precedes a noun or noun phrase use to indicate something definite (the) or indefinite (a, an)… The definite article points to a definite object that (1) is so well understood that it does not need description… (2) is a thing that is about to be described… or (3) is important. My usage is in line with number (2) in this instance. I could have used the words “your” or “any”, but notice how this subtly changes the meaning. The use of “the” in this context is somewhat idiomatic because, in English, there are phrases like “spare me the happy horse****” and so on that have a particularly ironic intent. That was the feeling I was looking for in this sentence. I hope this brief exercise has empowered you in your usage of the word “the.”

Don't worry, I'm not so upset so you need to take my personal feelings into account

*wipes forehead* Whew. Dodged a bullet there..

So my point is: as long as communication can flow in a way that people find interesting, I dont' think it matters whether SYM is a community or not.

I’m fine with that. However, because of my own personal interest in and exploration of what defines community, I do think it matters. Because in a community, people have a sense of personal ownership that allows certain experiences to manifest. There are levels of growth and lines of communication that are accessible to a community that are not available to a crowd, mob, or other forms of non-community. So I am curious to learn if the other members here feel the same way.