aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [Fwd: Re: [aaus-list] Addition to Vitvitsky]

["Rubchak, Bohdan" <kalush@uic.edu>]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: [aaus-list] Addition to Vitvitsky
From:    "Rubchak, Bohdan" <kalush@uic.edu>
Date:    Fri, June 13, 2008 9:19 pm
To:      bvitvitsky@comcast.net
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If you find my preceding message disrespectful, I should add the following:

Your first missive, expressed in legalese lingo straight out of Law and
Order, was EXTREMELY INSULTING to me and attempted to besmirch my
character as a liberal Ukrainian intellectual.

Generally, ukepolitcorrectess is naively gross: it lacks the subtlety and
refinement with which to approach an extremely fascinating subject of
Ukrainian history. If, for example, Jean Paul Hlynka (Hymka?
Khymka?Whatever!) did not suffer from it, his works on Halychyna would be
much more interesting than they are.

Bohdan Rubchak

That's enough from me.















































































































































L AND oRDER




On Fri, June 13, 2008 12:14 am, bvitvitsky@comcast.net wrote:
> Good Sir,
>
> I plead guilt to being a lawyer and a former academic and someone who is
> careful with language.
>
> You seem to have misunderstood the differences in meaning between "x
> doesn't know his Polish history/math [or whatever other subject]" and "x
> doesn't know his own Polish history/math [or whatever other subject]."  To
> say "x doesn't know Polish histoy/math. . ." is simply a statement of the
> subject's ignorance.  To use the idiomatic expression "x doesn't know his
> Polish history/math" does more than the first statement; it suggests that
> x should or could have known the object because he was supposed to study
> it or know it in connection with his job or whatever.  That's what "his"
> adds.  The third statement "x doesn't know his own Polish history" is
> still different insofar as it converys the sense that x has a special
> relationship with the object.  Since in most instances you can't have a
> special relationship with, e.g., math or biology, it would not make sense
> to say "x doesn't know his own math [unless one meant to say that x had
> made certain calculations and then it turned o!
>  ut he m
> isunderstood something about them]."  Thus, although one could, e.g., say
> about me that I don't know my own UKrainian or American history, it
> doesn't make sense to say that I don't know my own Polish history.  Your
> statement about