Time to Upgrade ?:-}

That doesn't actually follow. Your command of English is what's uncertain, and what seems obvious to you has turned out to be plain wrong in the past.

Obviously, your use of English is restricted by your own limitations, which are perceptible, if subtle - you really aren't at home in complex senstences.

The use of a word that doesn't show up in the Kucera-Francis table of word frequencies, when there's a widely used alternative two-word expression meaning the same thing, is deliberate obscurity.

What makes you think that? A certain self-preserving evasiveness?

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n, and what seems obvious to you has turned out to be plain wrong in the pa st.

be an example of intellectual bullying, if it wasn't in fact an instance o f intellectual failure on your part.

y, you aren't being concise but merely obscure, and deliberately so.

ich are perceptible, if subtle - you really aren't at home in complex sente nces.

True, but the corroboration is available here, for those with the interest and the patience to look. I don't have either.

rd frequencies, when there's a widely used alternative two-word expression meaning the same thing, is deliberate obscurity.

I understood the word, once I'd gone to trouble of looking it up. I may hav e seen it before, but not often enough for the meaning to have been built i nto my internal data-base - which is fairly extensive. It strikes me as s d eliberate and pretentious obscurity.

ormed, but was, in fact, a declarative statement, effectively quoting a cer tain Mandy Rice-Davies.

I was quoting a well-known phrase for informative effect, not asking any ki nd of question.

"Deliberately falsified"? She was saying that Lord Astor's denial of her al legation was predictable, predicated on the circumstances that made in very much in his interest to deny it.

The parallel with your situation isn't exact - I'm pointing out that your s entence comprehension is imperfect, and your denial is of a piece with your false perception that it isn't - but the parallel is close enough for gove rnment work.

Here we go again. My question started off with "What makes you think that" and hypothesised a certain self-preserving evasiveness on your part as a pl ausible answer.

You've got to do a bit more work than "with it coming from your camp" if yo u want to construct a coherent counter-allegation, not that coherence has e ver been your strong suite.

invective. It would be wasted here, where most of our posters aren't aware that there's a technical difference between a moron and a cretin, and don't know enough to be aware that neither would be likely to post here.

isagree with him, saving himself the intellectual labour of working out why they might be disagreeing with him, and the risk that he might learn somet hing from them - which is too humiliating for him to contemplate.

He's happy to ask for help about fixing his cocktail coasters, or buying a new computer. His political misconceptions are rather more firmly held.

You do have your own delusions, and contrive to emulate Don Quixote, tiltin g at the verbal equivalents of windmills that you find threatening due to a certain unfortunate weakness in you sentence-processing system.

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ut I was quoting a well-known phrase for informative effect, not asking any kind of question.

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You use the term "quotation marks". I'd prefer to say I delimited the phras e with double apostrophes. Obviously, it wasn't a quotation - since the ori ginal was directly above it.

I didn't say that her statement was declarative, I said that mine was. Hers was a famous, and often quoted rhetorical question, and I was making a dec larative reference to that situation. Your incapacity to cope with subtle e xpression has tripped you up again.

Sure. Another typo.

r sentence comprehension is imperfect, and your denial is of a piece with y our false perception that it isn't - but the parallel is close enough for g overnment work.

You'd like to think so.

I'd call your attitude Quixotic, if it wasn't entirely self-serving.

t" and hypothesised a certain self-preserving evasiveness on your part as a plausible answer.

Sadly for your claims to linguistic competence, it doesn't. First because m y hypothesis isn't flawed - or if it were you hadn't demonstrated it - and the way you tried to make the claim didn't actually work, as you'd be aware if you didn't have a tin ear for coomplex sentences.

you want to construct a coherent counter-allegation, not that coherence ha s ever been your strong suite.

Perhaps. As for the "stinging retort", it fell flat - as you would have not iced if you could parse complex sentences.

So what did you decide on?

Cheers

A Dell OptiPlex 7020, Wimpows 7.1, just was delivered in the last hour. I'll report weekend heartburn as I bring it on-line ;-) ...Jim Thompson

There good systems, We have a couple at work the newest one scored better than the 5yr old Xeons we have. Hope you have at least a DVI input on your monitor, the Optiplex is Display port only and you should have gotten a DP to DVI adaptor in the box.

Cheers

I have SP4 available; it was a freebie on the web. See screen capture. Will Snail to you if you want.

A genuine Smell? A white box wold have been better, me thinks.