your reply here quoted in its entirety for posterity:
> If you abuse punctuation to mean different things than it conventionally means, then you are not going to communicate effectively. Paraphrasing is when you describe someone’s position without using quotation marks (in English generally, single and double quotes have the same meaning, and are used to distinguish nested quotations, with regional variation in which is usually preferred for primary, unnested quotations; both are also used for use/mention distinctions for literal words of phrases, and some styles distinguish which style of quotes are used for use/mention vs. primary direct quotation, but paraphrase is neither of these.)
I hope this reply (focusing on 1 stylistic detail of the first sentence of the post rather than the substance) is not indicative of your usual posting. Try to focus on the substance. After all, I said I was assuming good faith and trusting that you were genuinely interested in the substantive discussion you started. Don't make me look dumb for trusting you. Feel free to edit your post to include more than just a stylistic nitpick.
Wait! Wait! I fear you heard might've heard me say something like, 'double down on the semantic thing, argue about its importance', but I didn't. Because what you or I think about stylistic preferences around paraphrasing (or as you put it, "abusing punctuation") is less important than stopping a genocide.
> I hope this reply (focusing on 1 stylistic detail of the first sentence of the post rather than the substance) is not indicative of your usual posting.
Not that I am overly concerned with your hopes in this area, but you could just check that with less effort than posting speculation.
> Because what you or I think about stylistic preferences around paraphrasing (or as you put it, "abusing punctuation") is less important than stopping a genocide.
That might be a point worth discussing, if what you were doing was, in fact, actually stopping a genocide, or even communicating effectively.
Darn, I was hoping you would focus on substance instead of again totally ignoring it and doubling down on the stylistic preference differences.
> if what you were doing was, in fact, actually stopping a genocide, or even communicating effectively.
It is! That's why I'm trying to discuss it in spite of deflections to purely stylistic differences. If you are interested in stopping the ongoing genocide too, please go back to the post you ignored the substance of and give a substantive, good-faith reply, if you are indeed interested in continuing the discussion you started and claim to want. Here is that post you ignored, for ease of navigation:
> If you abuse punctuation to mean different things than it conventionally means, then you are not going to communicate effectively. Paraphrasing is when you describe someone’s position without using quotation marks (in English generally, single and double quotes have the same meaning, and are used to distinguish nested quotations, with regional variation in which is usually preferred for primary, unnested quotations; both are also used for use/mention distinctions for literal words of phrases, and some styles distinguish which style of quotes are used for use/mention vs. primary direct quotation, but paraphrase is neither of these.)
I hope this reply (focusing on 1 stylistic detail of the first sentence of the post rather than the substance) is not indicative of your usual posting. Try to focus on the substance. After all, I said I was assuming good faith and trusting that you were genuinely interested in the substantive discussion you started. Don't make me look dumb for trusting you. Feel free to edit your post to include more than just a stylistic nitpick.
Wait! Wait! I fear you heard might've heard me say something like, 'double down on the semantic thing, argue about its importance', but I didn't. Because what you or I think about stylistic preferences around paraphrasing (or as you put it, "abusing punctuation") is less important than stopping a genocide.