Robin Fawcett Negatively Judging And Negatively Appreciating Halliday And Matthiessen (1999)

On 29 June 2011 at 08:42, Robin Fawcett wrote to Sysfling:

Indeed, if Michael Halliday and Christian Matthiessen had formed a clear view of the way in which the choices described in their Construing Experience through Meaning determine the choices in the major system networks of the lexicogrammar, they would surely have said so in that book. I have looked hard for a section that makes this connection, but I have yet to find it. This suggests that the model proposed there is simply one possible, half-complete hypothesis that needs to be subject to the normal process in science of development, testing, evaluation, revision (or rejection), retesting, re-evaluation, and so on.

Appraised	Appraisal
	Polarity	Attitude
Michæl Halliday And Christian Matthiessen	negative	judgement: capacity
Construing Experience Through Meaning	negative	appreciation: composition

On 9/1/12, Robin Fawcett wrote on the Sysfling List:

I would particularly like to support the calls for discussions to avoid being offensive, this being entirely unnecessary. Courtesy costs nothing.

Politeness, n: The most acceptable hypocrisy.

— Ambrose Bierce

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.
 — Honore de Balzac

Manners are the hypocrisy of a nation.
— Honore de Balzac

Any intelligent person who has studied the book closely knows that it is an intellectual tour de force.   So Bertrand Russell's observation is apposite:

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld