And knock it off the with “buts”, as in, “Thank you for
clarifying, but it’s not good enough...” You can say that
without the “but”: “Thank you for clarifying. That’s very
helpful. Now that I have basis to discuss your plans, I
want to let you know how much I hate that...” It’s not a
“but” statement—it doesn’t sit in contradiction of the
“thank you”—it’s an “and” statement: “Thank you for
fixing problem #1 and problems #2 through #46 still
exist.”
The only place that “but” of contradiction makes
rhetorical sense is in the latent, imaginary argument in
one’s head as to whether one is justified in being angry
with or hating LJ [LiveJournal]. “Your clarification is
a righteous behavior but insufficient to compensate, in my
assessment of how much you suck, for all the other crap
you’ve done.” Or more concisely, “Yeah, but LJ still sucks
for the following reason”, as if the matter of debate
isn’t whether what LJ has done sucks, but whether LJ
itself (or its staff) suck. The “but” betrays that you’re
really, in your heart, arguing the case of Why LJ Sucks,
not What LJ Is Screwing Up This Time.
Meh. ‘But’ is just ‘and’ with a case of incongruity. That’s what it is, so I don’t see a problem with using it for that… though of course dark arts applications would be problematic.
Train self to perceive the word “but” as an alarm bell. When tempted to use it in an argument, immediately abort sentence and reflect on whether to swap the clauses before and after it, or even save the latter for a more appropriate time. (I imagine a lot of people here already do that.)
-- Siderea
(Hat-tip to Nancy Lebovitz.)
Meh. ‘But’ is just ‘and’ with a case of incongruity. That’s what it is, so I don’t see a problem with using it for that… though of course dark arts applications would be problematic.
It’s even more dark artsy to not even mention contrary evidence.
Unless you know they’ll run across it and want to control their exposure to it.
Train self to perceive the word “but” as an alarm bell. When tempted to use it in an argument, immediately abort sentence and reflect on whether to swap the clauses before and after it, or even save the latter for a more appropriate time. (I imagine a lot of people here already do that.)