XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: fwbrown@bellsouth.net   
      
   In alt.fan.tolkien Clams Canino  wrote:   
   >   
   > "Wayne Brown"  wrote in message   
   > news:m16ttd$b5u$1@dont-> Preserving correct attributions is not "minor post   
   > formatting" but an   
   >> important part of USENET netiquette.  Also, no one called you a "horrible   
   >> person."  You were merely asked whether the source of your statement   
   >> about men being "easily corrupted" was in the books or the films.   
   >> It makes a difference, since a statement made ONLY in the films would   
   >> have no relevance to interpreting the author's intentions in the book.   
   >> For some of us, identifying the source of information (whether from   
   >> films, books or other USENET articles) has a bearing on how we evaluate   
   >> that information.  (I'm one of those who ALWAYS reads the footnotes in   
   >> books and seldom reads nonfiction that doesn't have footnotes.)   
   >   
   > You're absolutely right.   
   > Except that *this* poster never quoted anything - he was trolled.   
   > And it seems that many people are now attributed a "quote" to him that was   
   > never a quote.   
   > So you were trolled too...   :)   
      
   I didn't say he was asked about a direct quotation, I said he was asked   
   about the source of his information for a statement he made.  A simple   
   answer something like, "That's the way I see it, and I don't remember   
   whether I saw it spelled out exactly that way in either the books or the   
   films" would have sufficed, without impugning the motives of the person   
   who asked the question.   
      
   I was in a similar situation once:  I wrote a paper in school that   
   made reference to some basic astronomical fact (which one, I don't now   
   recall).  The teacher wrote a note in the margin that said, "Source?"   
   and I didn't know how to respond, since it had never occurred to me   
   that anyone would need a source for such a simple and well-known idea.   
   I had assumed it was a matter of common knowledge because it had been   
   a part of my mental landscape for so long that I had no clue when or   
   where I first learned it.  She might as well have asked me to provide   
   a source for the idea that that salt and sugar have different tastes,   
   or something else that "everybody knows."   
      
   --   
   F. Wayne Brown    
      
   Þæs ofereode, ðisses swa mæg.  ("That passed away, this also can.")   
      from "Deor," in the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)