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fubarobfusco comments on Rationality Quotes March 2013 - Less Wrong
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Yep. It's a matter of what features are salient to mention.
If someone said "I once had a civil argument with a German" it would sound like they were saying that it was unusual or notable for an argument with a German to be civil; or possibly that the person's Germanness was somehow relevant to the civility of the argument — maybe they cited Goethe or something?
(On the other hand, it might be that they were trying to imply that they were well-traveled or cosmopolitan; that they've talked to people of a lot of nationalities.)
If the identity mentioned is a stereotyped group, a lot of people would tend to mentally activate the stereotype.
I did not see a sexist subtext, where I think I would have seen a discriminatory subtext if he had used "I once had a civil argument with a German," because "woman" in this case explains his later pronoun use. If the person had been a man, I would have expected him to say "man", rather than "person", to better clarify his later use of "he."
In retrospect though, I can see why other people would interpret it as having a sexist subtext.
I think this thread is also experiencing this effect.
Quick! Where did your brain put emphasis first?! Maybe we need a poll to see if the distribution is roughly uniform. (Or maybe it's not uniform as shown by existing research I don't know about.)
Also, I really like the German example.
I once had a civil argument with a German. Germans' arguments are usually uncivil, but this one time ....
I once had a civil argument with a German. Most of my arguments with Germans are flamewars and cussin'.
I once had a civil argument with a German. Germans are so civil, even their arguments are civil!
I once had a civil argument with a German. I'm so good at civil arguments (or so well-traveled) I've even had one with a German!
I once had a civil argument with a German. I have such interesting and unusual experiences.
I once had a civil argument with a German. The rest of you have merely heard about civil arguments with Germans.
I once had a civil argument with a German. As opposed to a civil argument about a German.
I once had a civil argument with a German. I'm not trying to generalize the pattern to all Germans.
Trouble is, the default stress pattern is identical to the last. And you don't usually interpret the first sentence of a text with a non-default stress pattern when the following text doesn't force you.
I was primed by reading shminux's comment before seeing the quote itself, so I'll exclude myself from the sample.