David, you wrote:
Phillip wrote
Sorry David, but this is a case of you can’t have it BOTH ways. You have made a point of stating that we should go by what was written. Well, what was written here says that it WAS the same committee. “Your committee desires to report laying out many new golf courses on the new ground…” It is followed just a few lines later with, “"On our return, we re-arranged the course and laid out five different plans…”
Once again then it is the SAME COMMITTEE who laid out many new courses, then went to NGLA and then came back and rearranged the course and then “LAID OUT five different plans…”
Phillip, I said we need to take the source material at its word. I NEVER said we need to take TEPaul at his word. And the source of the snippet you are quoting is TEPaul. We'd be foolish to take it at full face value.
David, once again you are attempting to have it BOTH ways. You cannot argue that the quote is not acceptable because you don’t trust Tom and then tell me that my logic is lacking because I left out a portion of WHAT TOM WROTE!
As far as your belief that my theory “doesn’t make sense,” you wrote, “Plus Phillip, even TePaul's version raises doubt about your "same committee" theory.
- Lesley said "Your Committee desires to report that after laying out many new golf courses on the new ground…”" which would imply that it was the Site Committee acting there.
- You left out the part where it then says that "they" went to NGLA, implying that someone else went to NGLA besided the Committee informing the Board.
- Then it switches to "we." "We laid out five plans . . . "
It is you who doesn’t understand the language used. Both the word “your” and the word “we” speak to the exact same group of men. It is perfectly proper English grammar that when FIRST ADDRESSING the governing body one is answerable to that the “proper” form “your committee” be used and that when subsequent statements are made the “relaxed” form “we” can be used in its place. In addition, referring to the committee also as “they” is also proper and the sue of the word is not meant to imply that the person writing is not part of that collective known as “they.”
Therefor, writing that “your committee” did something and that “they” went somewhere and came back resulting in “we” doing may be confusing, but it is proper English grammar and of a type that isn’t used today by most people.
In other words, it makes no sense. Obviously TEPaul got it wrong or is leaving something out. Either way, you cannot conclude it was the same committee because the "they" conflicts with the "we."
Again, it DOES make perfect sense and the individual words do NOT conflict or contradict. Did Tom Paul get it wrong or leave something out? Not based on anything that I have seen. But again we have different opinions on that.
I completely agree with you that all of the above is simply MY OPINION. But then again, your disagreement with it is simply your own…
Terrific. But I don't think it was presented as opinion, which is why I objected.
Here again you failed to take note of the last thing I wrote in the original post – “For me, and I am sure that I will face an onslaught of arguing against this, I must conclude then that the “Committee” designed Merion and that the SIMPLE proof is staring at all of us in that single paragraph…”
Note that I stated that “I must conclude…” I never used the word “We” or stated that this was anything more than a theory. In fact I began it by stating why can’t BOTH SIDES be at least partly correct? If you took it that I was stating it to be fact, although I do believe it to be a correct interpretation of what occurred, I apologize; it is a theory, in the same vein as your essay.