The Battle Lines are Drawn

[Charles_Austin]

My deepest, sincere and most profound bowing-to-the-ground apologies to Mr. Hansen if I have unwittingly or carelessly misspelled his name; especially if he is a Norwegian who resents the fact that the error in his name came out making it look as if he were a Swede.
I guess the cat is out of the bag. I err. Sometimes on little things. Sometimes on big things. (Which is one of the reasons I'm reluctant to declare some things absolute TRUTH ... with a capital "T.")

[Richard Johnson]

O.k., I just sent it to you via PM.  Or if you prefer, I'd be willing to post a copy of it on the forum.

And I have responded to you privately. But if you want to post it here, I certainly have no objection. I can't see how any reasonable person can conclude either that Pr. Austin deliberately misspells your name, or that I "supported him" in his alleged "decision" to do so. I think you need to lighten up.

[Richard Johnson]

My deepest, sincere and most profound bowing-to-the-ground apologies to Mr. Hansen if I have unwittingly or carelessly misspelled his name; especially if he is a Norwegian who resents the fact that the error in his name came out making it look as if he were a Swede.
I guess the cat is out of the bag. I err. Sometimes on little things. Sometimes on big things. (Which is one of the reasons I'm reluctant to declare some things absolute TRUTH ... with a capital "T.")

Now see, I sort of tongue in cheek had said to Mr. Hansen (in this five months ago correspondence which he seems to have saved and fretted over) that your misspelling of his name was due to your ignorance of Scandinavians, and here's proof positive. The "en" spelling ain't Swedish, it's Danish. Usually, that is, except when it isn't.

[hansen]

The most pertinent parts:

Don Hansen:
 4)  I have PMed him again, to note the misspelling, and how I find his edit annoying.  He has neither changed it nor responded.

Pr. Johnson:
4) It is quite possible that Pr. Austin is trying to be annoying; wouldn't put it past him. 
And now I must get on to more important things.

Ergo it was intentional (no response, no correction) and Pr. J felt no need to do anything about it (support).  People mispell my name all the time.  Couldn't care less, as long as it isn't on a legal document.

As for the 5-month old e-mail, where did you get that I've been "fretting" over it?  Show me one sentence in support of that insinuation.  I have e-mails dating back to 2003.  And there's a handy-dandy search feature in my software, for finding most anything within thousands of e-mails.  That's the way e-mail works.  It takes up zero space.  And my memory is good enough to remember a contentious incident from 5 months ago.

Okey-dokey, that's enough defending myself from baseless accusations.  These are just more avoidance techniques:  Attack the person, if you can't argue the points.  Make something up, if you don't have anything realistic to go on.  Etc.

[Richard Johnson]

The most pertinent parts:

Don Hansen:
 4)  I have PMed him again, to note the misspelling, and how I find his edit annoying.  He has neither changed it nor responded.

Pr. Johnson:
4) It is quite possible that Pr. Austin is trying to be annoying; wouldn't put it past him. 
And now I must get on to more important things.

Ergo it was intentional (no response, no correction) and Pr. J felt no need to do anything about it (support).  People mispell my name all the time.  Couldn't care less, as long as it isn't on a legal document.

As for the 5-month old e-mail, where did you get that I've been "fretting" over it?  Show me one sentence in support of that insinuation.  I have e-mails dating back to 2003.  And there's a handy-dandy search feature in my software, for finding most anything within thousands of e-mails.  That's the way e-mail works.  It takes up zero space.  And my memory is good enough to remember a contentious incident from 5 months ago.

Ergo baloney. I didn't "support" Pr. Austin, I said it was "possible" he was trying to annoy you. And no, I didn't "feel any need to do anything about it" because in my view it was utterly unimportant. And I'm happy you have such a good memory. I didn't regard the "incident" as "contentious," though now that you've called it to my attention I do remember that you wrote Pr. Austin a personal e-mail that I thought was inappropriate, and I told you so at the time. Then I promptly forgot it, which apparently you did not.

So I repeat what I said above: you really need to lighten up.

[hansen]

So I repeat what I said above: you really need to lighten up.

It didn't start out "heavy".  It progressed there.  And the reason it progressed there, is because I won't play along with the games.

[Steven Tibbetts]

I can't see how any reasonable person can conclude either that Pr. Austin deliberately misspells your name

You're probably correct on this, Dick.  Pr. Austin, whose other vocation is journalist, regularly misspells many names in this forum, including just about every possible variation of mine, even as those names sit right in front of him on his screen. 

He has, though, admitted to deliberately not using the "quote" feature of this forum, by which the names of those he quotes would not be misspelled.

Pax, Steven+

[Charles_Austin]

Our esteemed moderator writes (re my tiny excursis on Scandinavian spellings):
The "en" spelling ain't Swedish, it's Danish. Usually, that is, except when it isn't.

I comment:
Yep. Sometimes. But not always. And there I go again, making an error. And - before I totally abandon this rather eerie thread of postings - I don't apply exactly the same sort of proofreading or double-checking in this tiny forum as I would were I writing for publication. We are here no more than a tiny band of people involved in... well, whatever we are involved in. To paraphrase Mr. Lincoln, the world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; nor will these words in themselves change the course of history.
But I shall try - without promising to succeed - to remember: it's Hansen, and Tibbetts.

[hansen]

Here's what I wrote, which spun off a lengthy 'discussion' about this little issue, thus obliterating the main point:
"My last name is spelled with an "e", although I know you intentionally misspelled it before, and Pr. Johnson supported you in that decision.  Interesting."

Note, it does not say that it's an ongoing pattern.  It say that it was misspelled this time (for whatever reason), but that it has been done before, intentionally.  It's the "intentionally" part which is annoying, which Pr.J conceded in Feb. was "quite possible" that was the intent.  When I've misspelled a name and it was brought to my attention, I simply apologized, edited it, and that was the end of it.  Simple.

[hansen]

I comment:
But I shall try - without promising to succeed - to remember: it's Hansen, and Tibbetts.

Or even simpler:  If someone points out a misspelling to you, correct it.  Why must you make such a big deal out of it?

[EENGELBRECHT]

What happened was that a speaker from the floor proposed a friendly amendment to a contested resolution, and the chairman of the floor committee declined to receive it is as friendly and instead had it put to a vote. The speaker from the floor then claimed that he made the motion to amend because the previous evening the floor committee chairman had said that he would receive it as friendly. The speaker from the floor claimed the chairman of the floor committee had therefore lied to him the day before. (As I recall he didn't call the chair a liar, he said he had lied-- big difference). It was a misunderstanding because the main resolution in question was a conglomeration of multipple overtures and resolutions and had been assigned to two floor committees for consideration. The floor committee chair who had made the promise to the floor speaker kept it, but the other floor committee chair working on it, who had made no such promise, declined to receive the amendment as friendly for reasons pertinent to his committee. So it all got worked out. It sounds as though the story grew substantially in the telling.

Peter, thanks for the clarification. Most helpful for those of who did not witness the event.

Did the accuser indeed apologize and receive forgiveness as was reported to me?

In Christ,
EE

[JMOtterman]

backtomypostbybonhoeffer,

Howoftendoanyofuschoosesideslikethoseportrayedinbonhoefferspieceaboutradicalismandcompromise? 
Insteadofmisspellingyouhavetopayattentiontothewordsandreadthesentencewholeand
notgetsidetrackedbyerrorsofgrammarandsuchothertrivialnonsenselikemisspelling.
Hansenaustinenglebrechtottermanjohnsonspeckhardstoffregenlohanhiltonspearsjustnameswithoutfaces
forthemostpartexceptforlohanhiltonspearsandsadlyfamousfolksthatwouldrathernotbeasfamousastheyare;
andanoteontheimportanceofobscurityisasimportantasisidentityjumble.MynameisalwaysmessedupandIalways
findtimetosmilewhenmynameisbutcheredintooblivion.pj

[SCPO]

Here's what I wrote, which spun off a lengthy 'discussion' about this little issue, thus obliterating the main point:
"My last name is spelled with an "e", although I know you intentionally misspelled it before, and Pr. Johnson supported you in that decision.  Interesting."

Note, it does not say that it's an ongoing pattern.  It say that it was misspelled this time (for whatever reason), but that it has been done before, intentionally.  It's the "intentionally" part which is annoying, which Pr.J conceded in Feb. was "quite possible" that was the intent.  When I've misspelled a name and it was brought to my attention, I simply apologized, edited it, and that was the end of it.  Simple.

     Don, as an outside lurker who enjoys and gains knowledge from your posts, may I suggest that you take the esteemed moderators suggestion and look for ways to have a little fun now and then.   How about changing your screen name to something along the lines of "Persnickity Poster".   Then think of all the contortions that Pastor Austen would probably go through trying to figure out how to inform an anonymous poster that he misspelled persnickety.

Regards,

Senior

[Michael_Rothaar]

How about changing your screen name to something along the lines of "Persnickity Poster".   Then think of all the contortions that Pastor Austen is probably going through trying to figure out how to inform an anonymous poster that he mispelled persnickety.
Regards,
Senior
Senior 

Hmmph! You made me look it up. For some reason I've always thought it was "persnickerty," but you're right.
Of course, you misspelled misspelled, Senior Senior.

My amusement fading, I was going to write a note suggesting getting back to the topic, but then I noticed that all these Austin-Hansen-LameDuckModerator posts are, in fact, on topic.

Not sure what the Bonhoeffer quote has to do with it - I kind of skimmed that one.

[JMOtterman]

Rev. Michael_Rothaar,

The Bonhoeffer quote is a stab at trying to establish a connection between the arguments of those who are strict confessionalists and those that live in a revisionists world.  Its not a perfect convergence or argument but the means by which we argue often seems to line up from the issues Bonhoeffer was facing in his day.  It's not an either/or but a both/and.  What do you think?  I would have liked to quote more of Bonhoeffer but my fingers were tired from typing the quote from the book.  Of course name(s) calling and spelling and the issue of gerund misuse and other grammar nightmares had taken over the thread for a time. 

PJ