The person who calls herself Kim Yoon Mi or Hitsuji or whatever made some awfully vitriolic comments about me, my arguments, and my interpretation methods in a certain forum thread. My comments are included:

Oh, look at the personal attacks. If I am proven wrong with actual evidence, then I would capitulate. However, you can claim that you have proven me wrong all you want, but if you have not actually done that, I will not accept your claims over mine. I have been proven wrong before. For instance, I used to think that Ptilol's name should be spelled "Pucherol" because of the idea that the name derived from the mineral name Pucherite. However, I later found out on my own that the name derives from the mineral names Clinoptilolite or Ptilolite. So, yeah, I will listen if I am been proven wrong. My greatest opponent is actually myself. In fact, I am in a constant struggle of finding information that would refute my claims. That is a method common to the scientific method.

It would be nice if you actually provided direct quotations from me. Without direct quotations, it is too easy to misrepresent what other people say. At any rate, "Ginzuishou" does not mean "mystical silver crystal," anyway, so I am safe.

I did not change the info and admit I was wrong because, as far as I could tell, I was not wrong. No sulking was necessary.

I do not think I would have denied any of that, so it looks like you are attacking a strawman.

Yes, I know how it goes. One person makes a particular claim, I reject it because of little or no evidence, and the person claims that he or she "prove me wrong" and says that I am being stubborn because I will not accept that claim. If not accepting unsupported claims is an example of stubbornness, then I suppose that scientists are also stubborn because they will not consider astrology a legitimate science.

Now if you actually proved me wrong, and I do not capitulate, then you would have a point.

I have no problem gathering multiple sources for my claims. In fact, you can just look at the numerous sources that I have used for the articles for my sites.

This is a perfect example of the strawman fallacy. It would have been nice if you actually provided a direct quotation where I allegedly claim that the Egyptian language had no vowels. That is particularly stupid claim, but then again, strawman attacks are designed to make your opponent's argument particular stupid so that it is easier to attack.

No, I am concerned about finding the truth, whether my arguments are valid or not. If my arguments are invalid and untrue, and they can be shown to be invalid and untrue without moronic semantic debates and various other forms of sophistry, then I have no choice but to modify my arguments.

Again, you do not cite any direct quotations from me. Could it be that you are just attacking more strawman?

I did refer to you as "Kim" in a certain section of my site, but that was done for the sake of convenience. Whether it was your real name was not relevant, as you said. I needed to call you something, and I did not know your real name. There is nothing wrong with someone else using a pretend surname even if it is not your real surname. If I claimed that "Kim" were (notice the use of the subjuctive mood here) your real surname, then you would have a point.

And with the strawman fallacy, you can come up with the fact that I made such a claim. Anyone should see the fault in that reasoning.

So? Must it be if I am going to call you something for the sake of convenience?

I was not aware that I need your permission. DIES GAUDII has this as an official policy: "Feel free to send me feedback. Please understand that all submissions (e-mail messages, chatroom messages, et cetera) become my property. Submissions may be published or reused in any other medium."

Here you go again with the unsupported ad hominem attacks.

The only thing that you have proven is that you have no shame in using strawmen versions of my arguments and methods.

No, you are attacking strawmen and throwing around ad hominem attacks. You are doing exactly what you say you do not want to do: sound like you are griping about a person who is not currently in the thread.

And I have a first-hand witness to back up the claim that she did say that Sailor Cosmos is essentially a future version of Sailor Moon: Hans Schumacher. He has a recording of the interview. People forget about details over time, but I would rather trust someone who can actually listen to what was said at the time.

It is interesting that you say that have first hand witnesses to back the claim up, but you do not name any of them except Stuart Levy. You say that Stuart Levy would (or could?) be able to back your claim up as well, but has he already stated (prior to your post) that Ms. Takeuchi did not say that Sailor Cosmos was a future version of Sailor Moon?

Then read the manga and look at the pictures. Sure, nobody says, "YES! YES! THAT'S RIGHT! SAILOR COSMOS IS A FUTURE VERSION OF USAGI!" in the manga, but how else can one interpret the "me of here" section of the manga without throwing out parsimony?

Even well-respected people can be mistaken. You can be mistaken. I can also be mistaken.

Or at least one that you wish to admit.

Then it opens a whole bunch of questions about the "me of here" part of the manga:

If Usagi or Chibi Chibi are not important to that picture, then what point is there to show them at all? When it comes to Usagi and Chibi Chibi, who was trying to make whom "choose the right path this time?" Who looks like she is supporting whom? Is Sailor Cosmos not referring to herself as the one who is doing the supporting while she is referring to the "me of here" in the third person?

Oh, it is "outright" now? That is your criteria? If it is, then you are just going to dismiss any evidence in favor of the claim that Sailor Moon is a future version of Sailor Cosmos so long as it is not an "outright" statement? What about the idea of coming up with a "good solid conclusion"? Does that mean "beyond a reasonable doubt" such that it is something we know the creator would say "outright"? Is the concept of "preponderance of the evidence" good enough? What about Occam's Razor? Are you going to commit the usual fallacy and dismiss Occam's Razor as some kind of illogical appeal to simplicity? Even if there is no "smoking gun" or "outright" statement in favor of one particular side, does that necessarily mean that both (or all) sides are of equal strength? No, not necessarily. Some sides make sense, others do not. Some have more evidence to back them up, others lack evidence and good reasoning. Saying that we cannot say something "outright" is not the same as saying that either side has no foundation.

It is annoying when people think that when a particular claim isn't backed up by some kind of "smoking gun" or "outright proof," that means the claim has no foundation, and there is nothing to support it. It's some kind of stupid binary logic. So:

absolute proof = 1
no foundation = 0

According to that reasoning, claims are either 1 or 0. And if all of the claims are < 1, then all of the claims are 0, and are equal.

It is a false dilemma: either something can be said "outright," or it has no foundation. However, that is not good reasoning. After all, we have not directly observed electrons doing their thing to bring about electricity, and we cannot say "outright" that is how electricity comes about, but that does not mean that the claim has no foundation!

Well, at least one first-hand witness, with a recording, says that she did say that.

Her "Ian Miller" page

It looks like this person has an entire page dedicated to me. Some of the comments on that page are similar to the comments she made in that forum thread. I have looked at some of the things she claims that I've said, and it turns out that she has said many bald-faced lies about me.

I provide citations for my information. Perhaps it is not so much that I do not verify my information as you dismiss the information that I provide (and I have a feeling that I know at least one reason that you dismiss my information).

Again, DIES GAUDII has an official policy concerning the reproduction of e-mail messages.

Bald-faced lie and strawman number one!

The individual kanji that are used to write "Ginzuishou" literally mean "Silver Water Stone" as you pointed out, but "Ginzuishou" as a whole means "Silver Crystal." The name does not mean "Mystical Silver Crystal," by the way. "Ginzuishou no Ginzuishou" can be interpreted to mean "Mystical Silver Crystal."

Bald-faced lie and strawman number two!

I say that

is the Egyptian word for "cat." That is a far cry from "mau."

My information came from

- Raymond O. Faulkner's A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian, page 104

- Sir Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar, Third Edition, Revised, page 568

But never mind me. Perhaps, in your mind, I am not really verifying my information.

Bald-faced lie and strawman number three!

Have you even read my site?

http://www.sailormoon.ws/diesgaudii/articles/mates/cite.html
"However, ancient Egyptian writing does not contain characters that represent true vowel sounds. Therefore, Egyptologists are not exactly sure about what vowels could have been in the real ancient Egyptian word. They do use several transliteration systems to approximate the consonant sounds in the ancient Egyptian words."

That's a far cry from "Egyptians don't have vowels" and "all people have to *guess* the vowels."

Sources:

- Maria Carmela Betro, Hieroglyphics: the Writings of Ancient Egypt, page 18

- Sir Alan Gardiner's Egyptian Grammar, Third Edition, Revised, page 26

- James P. Allen's Middle Egyptian, page 18

(Notice that she doesn't mention what source I provided. She also never explained why the source itself wasn't good enough.)

(Again, she doesn't name the source.)

Yet another strawman of my methods. I provide as many sources as possible. You are making it seem as if there is something wrong with using one source.

The articles on my site prove otherwise.

Yes, there are plenty of furigana used in the manga.

The link to the image is broken. That's okay because I have a scan of the attack here.

As for what the katakana-character combinations actually say, I will explain them:

"?????"
transliteration: Sabumarin
approximating: Submarine

"?????"
transliteration: Vioron
approximating: ???

"???"
transliteration: taido
approximating: Tide

The "?????" ("Submarine") and "???" ("Tide") parts are easy to figure out, but what about the "?????" part? It certainly isn't the English word "Violin" because that word is regularly approximated by the katakana-character combinations "?????" and "??????." Lest you should accuse me of not verifying my information by providing multiple sources, I have more than one source:

- Japanese?English Dictionary: violin

- Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Server: violin

According to the Sanseido Japanese Web Dictionary, "?????" is a variant of "????," which approximates the French word "violon." Unfortunately, the dictionary does not allow me to direct-link to the relevant dictionary entries. (I would not be surprised if you decided to accuse me of not being able to verify that piece of information.) Here is a site that shows a pretty large chart with the English, Italian, French, and German names of various musical instruments and their katakana-character approximations. Here is another one.

Moreover, "?????" is not only an unusual approximation of "Violin," it doesn't approximate that word well. An "o" sound (in "?????") is a far cry from an "i" sound (in "Violin").

For those reasons, I have come to the conclusion that

?????·?????·???

accurately approximates

Submarine Violon Tide

I have that information on my site, but you did not respond to it.

Bald-faced lie and strawman number four!

Again, that no direct quotations were cited.

Here is yet another unsupported claim. This is getting tedious.

Here is yet another unsupported claim. Look around my site. If I actually believe in what you are accusing me of believing, then it would contradict a large part of what I have written on my site.

Using strawman attacks is not rational behavior.

Well, yeah, what you are accusing me of arguing was not backed up because that was not what I was arguing.

Here is yet another unsupported claim.

This is yet another strawman of my methods. I do not "force" my "opinions" on people. If someone says something that I know is incorrect, then I will tell him or her that he or she is mistaken. If a particular argument or theory is weak, I will tell the person why that is.

More often than not, newbies already have been given incorrect information, so in order to lay claims to intellectual honesty, they have to un-learn the misinformation.

Where? How? In my forum signatures? In my e-mail messages? If so, I was not aware that doing that means that I am pathetically promoting my website.

I already responded to this above. Whether it was your real name or not was not relevant to my site. I wanted to refer to you as something other than "That Person" or something like that. It looks like you are putting words into my mouth and thoughts into my head.

Yes, put even more words into my mouth and thoughts into my head. If anyone should be rolling their eyes, it should be the ones who are seeing right through your strawmen.

Frankly, I do not see why I need your permission to post your e-mail messages on my site. If and only if you keep their comments to yourself do you rightly protect them from my (or anyone else's) scrutiny. No, I do not see why, when you post those comments somewhere I can see them, I should not let other people see your comments and my responses as long as I am not violating Free Use. In many cases, such as this one, people who take the moral high ground are the ones who whine about "maturity" when they're trying to distract others from the fact that their arguments are weak (because of strawmen, lies, et cetera).

After reading your comments about me, I have come to the conclusion that if someone does not provide multiple sources (and exactly how many are necessary is never stated), then that person cannot verify his or her information. Going by such a draconian policy, we should purge the hapax legomena in Latin, Greek, and English dictionaries that are attested by one source each. And what about unique primary sources that other people have not yet cited yet, such as diary entries that have recently come to light? If I found out that the composer Clara Schumann absolutely loved the color purple, and that information appeared in only in a newly-discovered journal entry, is that information unverified? According to your ultra-rigid policy, such information is unverified, and therefore not worthy of consideration. If we use such a policy, then even the sources that we have are not valid, either, if any of them contain any bit of information that comes from one source. Sure, having multiple sources is good, but it is not reasonable to dismiss a claim simply because there is only one source cited. However, implying that I need to provide multiple sources to verify my arguments is a false dilemma ("black and white") fallacy. One piece of evidence is still one piece of evidence.