The biggest problem with “weasel words” here is that accusers do not ask nor wait for explanations before judging, but will bust up a technical topic with Netiquette lessons not even weakly tied to the actual topic.
If anyone from a true community uses “we” naturally, that can only be “weasel words” to unsympathetic outsiders.
That is, for me, out of a fear that you will not easily change your writing style, and pointing it out in the original topics would derail the topics.
This is also, I think, not a lesson in netiquette, but in how to write. I would have the same criticism wherever I encountered it.
If it is clear who the “we” is, the members of your family for example, or the authors of the report, all is good. If it is not it is an example of the above I think. The issue is so easily sidestepped by just saying “I” or explicitly naming the people you mean by “we.”
I insist there is a close AWE community going back many years. Wubbo himself could talk about “we”, and we understood, without anyone needing to cry “weasel”. If someone states, “its predicted humans can reach Mars”, that is not cause to cry “weasel” and “who says?”. The problem may be between those who think AWE is an urgent global need for us as a team to solve, and those who compete for private business success in AWE.
Its an insidious abuse to interfere with technical discussion with English writing-lessons. After all, for most scientist-engineers, English is a second language, and by tradition we simply ignore weak written or oral expression, trying only to figure out the intended meaning, never crying “weasel”. We also keep in mind that not everyone can write everything out. Imagine Hawking posting as best he could and someone objecting to a lack of detail. Give him time, and he answered as well as anyone.
The use of “weasel word” terms is a limited technical mean, avoiding talking about some intentionality.
The weasel aspect is to put technical kite ideas second.
That looks like a self-criticism.
Yes it is. If we all agree (the participants of the conversation) that we can go to Mars we will usually gloss over it. That’s a bias. If someone disagrees they will not gloss over it.
I agree we can go to Mars, if someone says “it is predicted humans can’t go to Mars” I will absolutely ask: who, what exactly did they say, and when?
You’re making a claim that not everyone agrees with, so you will be challenged to back up your claim, as is good scientific practice.
Pierre is correct that I should offer more technical content to offset Netiquette responses. Others even more so.
Its a subjective decision to only question “can’t go to Mars” v. its opposite, or “ram-air tensairity” v blower-dependent tensairity.
Yes. Unfortunately I am still mortal and my time is limited.
I bolded in my second post in this topic the important bit: is predicted to, the rest of your comment was just the context and not relevant to this discussion.
It remains predicted.
Sure. Then the challenge will also remain: by who, what did they say exactly and where did they say it? Do they have test data or other to back up their claims?
The important thing is the test data and the physics. The prediction is meaningless in itself, the analysis that supports it is the interesting thing.
Thanks for asking, the most expert discussion of this prediction is among elite kite designers. We agree based on our common knowledge of sound kite principles, including KIS and “splinted airbeams”. The “test data” is the kites you see at kite festivals, as a Darwinian evolution.
Try adding blowers to actual kites and see for yourself.
Thanks. This qualifies the prediction. Now anyone can try to determine if the prediction is relevant to them, and what they think the value of it is. I would have liked to see, or be linked to, a much deeper analysis though.
LOL! If that’s not anonymous authourity, I don’t know what is.
“Keep it simple” http://www.energykitesystems.net/0/KITESA/FAQelectric/glossary/a.html
Just write the three words out!
“Elite kite designers” can only mean folks like Morse himself, who seems to have invented the splinted airbeam (ram-air tensairity) kite named for him.
Dave Culp, Peter Lynn, Roy Mueller, Dean Jordan, and so on, are the very rare “Kite God” kite designer types that truly qualify as “elite”. Not knowing who is elite is no cause for a “weasel” scare.
I find this post objectionable on many fronts.
Partly yes, but almost always partly fractious too.
Never doubted his eloquence. But even Wubbo would have made mistakes in learning language as everyone ever & from Pocock onward has. I’m sure with good intents and the massive skill set he had, his sentence framing would be exemplary. There would be no need to call him out. … However, Who is the second we ? we understood? Who is we here? everyone in which room? Make your point clearly please
What if a kid standing beside a peashooter rocket is stating it?
Just be brave and know you’re doing right. This is public record. State your irrefutable art here confidently.
I agree, it’s weird and shadowy when even a moderator is anonymous, @Windy_Skies but no matter their motive this and the yahoo forum is visible from outside to any lurker, troll or exploiting AI overlord.
I used to believe that too … However, there is nothing surer than poor communication to corrupt discussion, technical or otherwise. Please help others with weak communication skills and don’t ignore them, nor their message, nor their struggle to communicate (This was a prior job and voluntary position for me)
I’m glad you edited this bit, but still
Maybe this will help the young weasel-hunters track “poor communication” in Science back to its roots, rather than attack standard usage-
From the page- " Single authors referring to themselves as “we” is still commonplace today, and already Newton was we-ing in Principia. There is even a Latin term for we-ing, nosism, from “nos”, which is Latin for “we”. Googling “royal we in scientific writing” returns surprisingly many hits, including a Wikipedia article, two questions on Academia.SE, and a hilarious thread on scienceblogs with passages like " I’m we-ing all over myself ", " it is apparently meant to include the author and the reader, and presupposes that the reader always agrees with anything the author might say ", and " As kids we were schooled to avoid ‘I’, lest we be look like we had big egos. Instead we should be humble, and therefore all first person was the plural. This was taught to us by teachers who thought their own opinions were pure gold and more important than anything else on earth ".
I guess this tells us why the practice persists, but not how it originated. The best I could find is Grammarphobia blog quoting Oxford English Dictionary, whose earliest example of nosism is “Old English translation of a 5th-century Christian history written in Latin by Paulus Orosius, a student of St. Augustine”. We doubt however that scientists of all people would have been swayed by an obscure student of St. Augustine. More importantly, at least in the English translation, Ptolemy is already we-ing in the Almagest three centuries earlier. Of course, we don’t know if we can trust that modern translators did not insert modern usage, but they did translate Archimedes and Apollonius referring to themselves as “I”.
So where did nosism come from and how did it take hold? Is Ptolemy we-ing in the original, and was he the one who started the practice in science (that would make more sense than Orosius)? Or was it somebody else?"
Good on you for trying to find support for your practice.
The usage in your link refers to the part I mentioned earlier, bolded here:
You’re not writing a report or article here. You’re also not guiding the reader along like in a math proof. So the way you use it is not supported by your link.
Edit:
You are trying to guide the reader along here I think. I’d like to decide what I think about the use of the passive voice like you do here in the context of this forum. Is it appropriate since you are not guiding your novice reader along in well-known concepts, and you’re not writing an article describing new research that you have done? Is it clear you’re not referring to some unnamed entity that made the prediction? It wasn’t to me and look where that got us.
What’s inappropriate to my mind is trying to please the linguistic whims of an unidentified person, when the real job is technical. Measure my posts by the applicable AWE content or expect me to leave if you continue moderating so.
It’s not just a linguistic whim.
It’s about increasing the information to noise ratio to convey technical infomation efficiently.