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Originally Posted by shakran
Look, to be completely honest you're making yourself look foolish here. If you say you do NOT RESPECT something, and the defintion of disrespect is to NOT RESPECT something, then you DISRESPECT it. I don't know how Cynthetiq could have spelled this out more clearly for you. You do disrespect the Amish.
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I get where he's coming from, and I agree with him. Not to say that the dictionary is <i>wrong</i>, but I don't think it should be worded as it is. There's a yes, a no, and a maybe - you respect, disrespect, or don't care. It may be technically correct that 'dis' is 'not' and so qualifies as a lack of respect, but disrespect has negative connotations. Whereas disrespect <i>should</i>, etymologically just mean lack of respect, it is assumed that when one disrespects another they have negative feelings towards them. This may, however, not be the case. To respect means to hold in high esteem, to disrespect means to not have a high esteem for - but not necessarily to hold in disdain [yipes, there's that dis- again!].
What debaser is saying - regardless of etymology and definition - is that he doesn't dislike the Amish, but doesn't have reason to hold them in high regard. Yes, he's using disrespect incorrectly, but that's what he means (and you know it, so there's no point in going on and on about how he disrespects the Amish, because you know what his feelings are, even if they're not communicated entirely correctly). I personally feel that every verb like this should not only be a matter of yes or no, but have a middle-ground. Disrespect, while only really meaning to not hold in high esteem, has connotations of being in opposition. Being unsupportive is one thing, but being actively against it is quite another.