Incidentally, you ask me if I know what a malapropism is. According to my Collins English dictionary, a malapropism is “the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one of similar sound, esp when creating a ridiculous effect”.

People certainly unintentionally confuse ‘inferred‘ and ‘implied’, and it is obvious that they do not make the same mistake with words similar in meaning to these but with different pronunciations. For example, no one confuses ‘concluded’ or ‘judged’ with ‘implied’. Hence, it is perfectly reasonable to call the use of ‘inferred’ for ‘implied’ or vice versa a malapropism.

Moreover, you say in regard to malapropisms “Calling me Macmalapropism may be, but what you accused me of committing ain’t”. So you are not only saying that what I accused you of was not a malapropism; you are also saying that calling you Macmalapropism may be a malapropism itself. From this, I think it is clear that you do not understand what a malapropism is. After all, how can what I said ever be considered a malapropism?

Here are some sites that refer to the confusion of infer and imply as malapropisms (the second link is to a blog by Mark Liberman, a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania)

http://www.uq.edu.au/~pdwgrey/web/essays.html
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000305.html
http://www.cdtl.nus.edu.sg/UFM/effect/432_c.htm

Contrary to what you think, I am not Bob Latchford. I didn’t mention the fact before because I could see you were just angling. It’s not very good manners to employ phrases like ‘disgusting man’ unless you are sure of the person’s identity.

You say “when challenged to link the site authors to these comments”, but I had no intention of linking the site authors to the comments, because when someone states something about a site, they are not necessarily stating something about the authors. If I say “I do not like some of the things said on that site”, the ‘things’ in question may be in the articles, but they may be in the threads. In the thread ‘pruning’, which David T has just put up, David T says “I am quite often embarrassed by the content and tone of the comments on the articles on the site”. Are you saying the comments are not on the site?

“You were “clearly” adopting the fascistic smear of associating whole groups of individuals with certain personality traits, and then bottle it when challenged”. Dear, dear. I was merely being polemical, Alec. As for the bottling it, it is absurd. You know nothing about me, I’m afraid. By making precise my references, I was merely complying with your complaint in regard to my overstating the case.

““One of the most amusing features of this site is its hypocrisy”. The only way out is for you to admit that you were referring to the nebulous concept of an Internet page as representing a malign force…”. To clarify that I didn’t mean the site’s authors in particular, I said “When I said “this site’ I meant the whole consisting of the articles themselves and the comments relating to them”.

Clearly, this is misleading, because text can not be hypocritical, so I should have said “one of the most amusing features of a fair few of the people who contribute to this site is their hypocrisy”. That was ‘the way out’, as you call it, because it makes it clear that I was referring to people not text, and to a section of them rather than all of them. It is called moderating one’s claims, Alec.

But you say “The only way out is for you to admit that you were referring to the nebulous concept of an Internet page as representing a malign force”, which is nonsense. All I had to do was moderate my claims somewhat and my main point is sound. As for the “psychotic episode” part, that’s an old trick, and it only gets a laugh in contexts where someone has made an irrecoverable error, and not merely been a bit polemical.

thus making it appear that I am saying all the contributors to Harry’s place are hypocrites.

Except, of course, I did not say that you did. From the start, I have referred to “site authors”. You referred to “this site” as being represented by those commenters who mentioned the Limerick pogrom and, when challenged to link the site authors to these comments, flapped around with the most tortuous of definitions of “this site”, whilst allowing yourself endless leeway on interpreting mine.

You were “clearly” adopting the fascistic smear of associating whole groups of individuals with certain personality traits, and then bottle it when challenged.

It is unthinkable that any of the authors on this site would concur with such statements. It is also highly unlikely that anyone remotely familiar with this site would believe that they did.

Yet you said “One of the most amusing features of this site is its hypocrisy”. The only way out is for you to admit that you were referring to the nebulous concept of an Internet page as representing a malign force, in which case you’re in the grip of a psychotic episode. If so, I would recommend you seek professional help, now.

But, no, you went on to say, “you root about [...]“. Thus, you’re not referring to a nebulous concept but to individuals, known or unknown. Hey, didn’t you say you weren’t? Hypocrisy!

here are a few parts from one of John P’s posts

Sorry, stopped reading there, Bob. John P has not commented on this thread, so is only relevant if, in response to A, you’re discussing B, and lumping the site authors in with an individual they repeatedly disavow any support for. But you insist you’re not.

You using City Hall equipment?

The absurd claim that my remarks were ‘pant-pissingly funny’ must be based either 1) on the false notion that I have contradicted myself or 2) on an equivocation on the word ‘associating’.

1. The first quote you have used of mine in your 10:20pm post does seem to contradict the third, but that is only because the first quote has been taken out of context, thus making it appear that I am saying all the contributors to Harry’s place are hypocrites. In the actual passage, I go on to say after the statement you quoted “As evidence of hypocrisy may be found among the comments, it was quite proper for me to say ‘One of the most amusing features of this site is…’. The phrase in no way implies that any specific aspect of the site, in this case the authors, is being referred to. Do you really suppose that I was suggesting that the authors of the site were looking for pogroms that occurred in 1904?”

Hence, I was clearly saying that I did not mean all contributors were hypocrites, and there is no contradiction between the two statements when the first of them is seen in context

2) You began this debate by saying by saying that I ‘inferred’ that the two posters were “representative of the site authors”. But now you are talking about my ‘associating’ the site authors with the two posters, which is an entirely different concept. Merely by saying “the whole consisting of the articles themselves and the comments relating to them” I have in a sense associated the authors with the two posters simply because I have grouped them together; but this is not at all the same as saying that they are representative.

With regard to their being representative, I did not infer any such thing. I have merely cited them as instances of hypocrisy on this site. If I had said “x believes all Muslims should be deported from the UK, but then says…” it would not have in any way implied that x’s view was shared by the authors.

In short, you can regard my remarks as ‘pant-pissingly funny’ only by taking the remark concerning ‘this site’ out of context, or by introducing a new term ‘associating’.

As to ‘implied’ or ‘inferred’, here are a few parts from one of John P’s posts “No, you don’t get it. Islam is, has and always will be redundant to the entire human enterprise. It has virtually no real achievements to speak of… The sheer idiocy, superstition and backwardness chactersing the Muslim world is all that’s left when the wealth and intellectual vibrancy of those who’ve been conquered have been exhausted”.

It is unthinkable that any of the authors on this site would concur with such statements. It is also highly unlikely that anyone remotely familiar with this site would believe that they did. Hence, I assumed you meant ‘implied’, principally because of the improbability of anyone identifying the site‘s authors with John P‘s views. Nonetheless, though you are wrong in assuming I inferred the authors shared John P’s view, if you say that you did not confuse the two words, then I believe you.