For Newsnight: should we end universal benefits for better off pensioners?

Oh, it was plagiarism we were objecting to! Always on the look out for that when I used to mark students' course work.

It was me who used the term 'dumb down' and I meant it to be a humorous way of asking deserving to try to make his/her point in a less complex manner.

It was meant to be light-hearted!!

Now I'm wondering what when means about point-scoring.

However, if the powers that be have decided we have to let it drop, well I'll do just that.

Annobel One of the things we did a lot of at school in English classes was precis - reducing a page of print to a couple of sentences without losing the main points. Very good practice at sifting the wheat from the chaff. I don't know whether that is still done. Probably not, I'd say.

Shows what happens when threads are used as a vehicle to score points off Gransnetters. I agree, let's return to the original scussion

We can always trust you, Elegran for a clear explanation. I agree with you 100% that to make something understandable is not in any way to 'dumb down'. I spent forty years trying to drum that into students' heads.

Oh yes - what did all this have to do with universal benefits? Please take that as a rhetorical question. I fear the answer!

I think what happened (but could be wrong) is that absent found deserving's post rather convoluted and difficult to follow, constructed as it was from some sentences copied from elsewhere, so she joked that she had lost the will to live.

I restated what *deserving" had said in what I thought was a clearer form, as I agree with it, but then she replied that to simplify was to dumb down. I repeated that saying something so that it could be understood was not dumbing down but an essential part of communication.

Others took against her quoting from Wikipedia without acknowledging it.

From there the conversation followed a predictable course into misunderstanding and recriminations.

Shall we drop it now and return to the point? What was the point anyway, I am lost now.

Here's the Wiki entry that our friend deserving would, I am sure, like to credit for the information s/he has shared with us

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming_(Internet)

I found the exact same passage on Wiki as Anagram did. If one does quote from a web site, it's the done thing to give attribution and the web link. Sorry to be blunt.

Anagram I am genuinely puzzled.

Are we saying deserving is that thing which cannot be named?

Has there been plagiarism?

What?

What an interesting thread - somehow I have completely missed it, so I have just read the last few pages. And it is true GN, with its wonderful digressions, humour, bewilderment, common sense, intelligence, dissent, touches of anger, and so on.

We do all have our individual styles, and they are what create the tone and the life of our conversations and chats. I've found the posts from deserving a little hard to follow, but maybe that is his/her style?

Any text is only what the reader makes of it?

I am being my usual thick self here but I agree with petallus. Why is deserving getting such a backlash. Is it a surity he/she is not simply doing what we are all entitled to do, write his/her thoughts.

Can someone explain to me in a very simple term what is happening, again, here. Are you saying he/she is plagiarizing and if so are not others guilty of similar when they refer to newspaper articles or t.v. programmmes for example. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick thinking there is a backlash from other G.N.'s here.

I am not trying to be argumentative I genuinely get frustrated when there is an apparent joined up response to a gransnet member.

I just don't get it!. Someone explain to me PLEASE

Well, if you're determined to ignore the obvious, so be it, petallus.

How very unkind some of are being (you know who you are)

I thought deserving's response was nice because he/she did not seem to be too put out by that unkindness and also made an effort to keep the post short/er.

Elegran thanks for explaining what a lurker is. Is it not the done thing to lurk? I should think we have plenty of them.

I asked deserving to 'dumb down with my tongue in my cheek but thanks for explaining that to me as well.

I do?

Thanks, Elegran! Having laboured my point perhaps a bit too much, it's good to know that someone agrees with me...

Personally, I thought it was a load of an endangered fishes hitting power!

anagram My thoughts exactly. If someone can't put it into their own words, they don't understand it.

Emperor's clothes?

Age 'as nowt to do wiv it!

jeni, you are a comparative spring chicken!

Nottt me! I'm far to dimm to understand what it's withering on about! A propper toc-H lamp me!
Must be me age! I'm senile!

Well, I still think quoting slightly-altered chunks of Wikipedia information and claiming it's all your own work is WRONG unless you make it clear that you have done so. Affecting an amused, condescending tone is not going to win people over.

Perleeeease! Mums net teaching about communication?

EH !!!

Perhaps Gransnet should have an editorial panel? Or perhaps the Mumsnet Academy will offer courses in how to post

Absent - don't lose the will to live; just escape to another thread!

Petallus A lurker is one who reads the posts but does not contribute any themselves, generally someone who has not yet plucked up the courage to poke their head over the battlements to be shot at. They are not all that noticeable as they try not to draw attention to themselves.

On dumbing down .... the purpose of communication is to convey ideas and information from one person to another. The more simple and straightforward the language and the sentence structure used, the better the subject matter is transferred. Convoluted sentences are not a sign of great intellect, more of an inability to organise thoughts into a form which can be comprehended. It takes a genuine understanding of the subject to express it clearly.

Writing so that you can be understood is not dumbing down, it is showing respect for the reader - who does, after all, want to know what you are on about.