This is in response to Carl's question below. (In a different thread)
ad-hominem attacks
Interesting phraseology. I only know of one other person in this business who likes to use this phrase. Is this you?
Why I am probably not Todd Rockoff:
The ad hoc "ad hominem" argument is only weakly supported by the actual record. It is true that Todd has used the phrase AH twice before, both times in the discussion that was to be his last, the infamous and bitterly contested, Disaster thread...
However he is hardly the only one on IPVM to use the phrase (counting only the last year). In order of frequency (with spelling variants parenthetically included) we have:
- John 5 (ad hominin)
- Todd 2 (ad hominem)
- Carl 2 (ad hominem)
- Chris Dearing 1 (ad honinem)
- Mortem Nielsen 1 (ad-hominem)
- Myself 1 (ad-hominem)
For the record, QED says "ad hominem" is correct. In any event it is clear that the phrase is in general usage in IPVM. Looking back it is easy to see why you might strongly associate Todd with the phrase, as he directly accused you, in that disastrous discussion, of using unfairly using personal AH type attacks against him. In fact, a small chunk of the ending consisted of discussing just this contention. So one would assume, that this charged allegation levelled at you, left some impression upon you, and that when re-triggered by my innocent usage, caused your epiphany...
The first reason that I am probably not TR is: There is absolutely no chance I would have allowed something to go without comment, that was so ironic and hypocritical as Todd's using his own AH to protest your AH! As in "Bad Carl, isn't he is such a NameCaller?"
The second reason would be, note my incorrect hyphenated spelling vs. Todd's correct spelling. Do you think he just happened to start incorrectly throwing in a hyphen all of a sudden? Or do you think that he is so smart that he intentionally added a hyphen, just so he could deny it right now?
Probably not...