Re: Why do Pokorny's roots for water have an "a" in front?

From: dgkilday57
Message: 70590
Date: 2012-12-13

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Rick McCallister <gabaroo6958@...> wrote:
>
> I agree with you regarding Kilday. What's his day job and why doesn't he have an endowed chair at a major university? I'm betting he's either a hedge fund trader or a denizen of the CIA Puzzle Palace
>
I hope you didn't bet more than a dollar. I wash dishes at a restaurant inside a resort for $8.75 per hour, a whopping $1.50 more than Wal-Mart employees rake in.
> ________________________________
> From: Bhrihskwobhloukstroy <bhrihstlobhrouzghdhroy@...>
> To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 5:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Why do Pokorny's roots for water have an "a" in front?
> *Bhr.: by "You all" I mean everyone who without reasonable doubts
> adds to etymological discussions generalizing restrictions from
> General Linguistics that, up to now, are still under debate. To
> maintain that every single phonological feature must change every say
> two millennia is of course a possibility, but by no means an
> ascertained law - and this is the only point I reject...
> If You want names, S. Kalyanaraman isn't interested in
> Indo-European; Tavi is interested, but doesn't accept Indo-European
> linguistic procedures and offers too loose alternatives (for our
> methodological requirements) to them; Stlatos does use perfect
> Indo-European rules, but adds to them personal (albeit always acute)
> formulations in a frame of optionality which makes everything too
> vague; Torsten postulates substrates that can be interesting, but is
> unjustifiably too critique toward any at leaast equally possible more
> 'traditional' explanation; DGK is one the greatest Linguists I've ever
> known, but his systematic option for loans from three of four
> substrates which are less sure than universally recognized IE classes
> lets him make the same incoherence as Torsten's: extremely tough about
> traditional explanations, while much more indulgent with his own
> proposals...
>
This criticism is spot on. Generally I've done a lousy job of policing my own theorizing, failing to apply the same standards that I use when finding fault with other theories. As a result I find myself retracting posts, or radically modifying them, more often than everyone else here combined.

What I need is a New Year's Resolution to improve, which should last until Jan. 15 or so.

DGK