Don,

What do you perceive as the difference between a statement of fact and a
statement of opinion? As I understand the question, all such declarations
are statements of opinion, even though the speaker thinks what he says it is
true or factual. It is then up to the listener to decide whether the
opinion is true or false. (I'm not talking about questions of taste here
such as whether one like's mayonnaise or not-personally I hate it but I see
no way that my preference can be anything other than personal). Discourse
would be very tedious indeed, if we had to say "in my opinion" every time we
wished to express our ideas on something. I think that often what people
mean when they say "Well that's your opinion" is that 1) they disagree and
2) since it's only an opinion, they don't have to take it seriously.

There is no problem with Jacki's English. She, idiomatically, expressed her
opinion that a rehabilitator ought not to discriminate against injured
animals on the grounds that they are indigenous or not. You disagree.
Fine. But the discussion of such issues needs to be about the reasoning the
underlies both positions, not simply ill-tempered sniping at someone because
they weren't self-effacing in their presentation of their opinion. After
all, I've been reading this list long enough to know that that's not the way
you express your opinions.

Steve Kimball
Federal Way, WA
skimball at halcyon.com


----- Original Message -----
From: Don Baccus <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
To: <skimball at halcyon.com>; Tweeters <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 1999 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: An opinion on opinions


> At 01:53 PM 5/13/99 -0700, Don Baccus wrote:
> >At 01:44 PM 5/13/99 -0700, Steven Kimball wrote:
> >
> >>Is there anyone out there in Tweeters land who can't recognize an
opinion
> >>without a label? (See below for full context). When Jacki Bricker
writes
> >>that "any wildlife rehabilitator worth their salt does not display
> >>preferential treatment of one species over another." it is pretty
obvious
> >>from the nature of the construction that she is expressing an opinion.
> >
> >Then she should learn to write english clearly and unambiguously.
>
> To be more explicit, no, it is not clear. The construction is in the
> form of a statement of fact, not of opinion.
>
>
>
> - Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza at pacifier.com>
> Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
> http://donb.photo.net