Ardith Hinton to Anton Shepelev:   
      
   AH> In my experience, formal speeches often begin with   
   AH> phrases like:   
   AH>   
   AH>   
   AH>     I have the honour of reporting that [blah blah]   
   AH>     I have the honour of presenting [blah blah]   
   AH>   
   AH>                         or   
   AH>   
   AH>     It is my honour to report that [blah blah]   
   AH>     I am honoured to present [blah blah]   
      
   And they do.   
      
   AH> If the authors of these reports made an error by trying   
   AH> to put two grammatical constructions together, I don't   
   AH> see it as particularly serious...   
      
   I wonder why it is an error.  A good old prescriptivist   
   explanation would satisfy me, for prescriptivists consider   
   language an embodiment of logical rules, whereas   
   descriptivist think rules are but crude formulations for   
   fuzzy volatile tendencies in language.   
      
   AH> but I wonder who is so sure they're right (or wants us   
   AH> to think they are) that they find it necessary to add   
   AH> "of course" to lend weight to their argument.   
   AH>   
   AH>             WRT politics it behooves us to be on the   
   AH> alert for slanted writing, and WRT this excerpt I notice   
   AH> that the author hasn't specified what his or her   
   AH> objection is to the wording in the committee reports or   
   AH> why it "should" be xxx rather than yyy.   
      
   When aksked about the difference of "honor" from "right",   
   "courage", "permission", and "privilege", he replied:   
      
   >Possibly because all those verbs are descriptive, stating   
   >ability or permission to report (picture theory of   
   >language, Wittgenstein's TLP), while "honor" is part of the   
   >sentence that is Speech Act per se ?   
      
   AH> Yes, I have the courage to share my thoughts in the E_T   
   AH> echo when I see that somebody out there wants to learn   
   AH> more about my native language.   
      
   And I thank you therefor.  Observe it cannot be "the courage   
   of sharing", for courage is a prerequisite for the ability   
   to share.   
      
   ---   
    * Origin: ** nntps://fidonews.mine.nu ** Finland ** (2:221/6.0)