Is it actionable to criticize an author's claims in terms replete with irony & scorn?

[Licljim]

I am in the process of writing to the author of a book that I have been reading. The burden of my letter is, briefly, that I consider him a fifth rate logician, a sanctimonious, canting sophist, a feeble intellect, and a pre-eminent purveyor of sheer premeditated poppycock. I also call in question his representation (to his readers) of his "God" ; the book is a religious one written by a prominent, if decidedly third-class evangelist. I do not become offensive in my letter; in fact the furthest I go in my remarks about his God is to say that "if his statements are indeed true, then his God must be of an even more evil nature than Lucifer"
My question is: is there, on the basis of what I've just written above, anything in my letter that might be actionable? My intention throughout my letter is to present him with a coldly reasoned contradiction of most of his assertions, giving it as my opinion, by the way, that he must have the intellectual capacity of an imbecile.
The Author resides in Connecticut.
I reside in New Zealand.

 

[JETX]

If you make it clear that your comments are your opinion and they are not 'published' with malice or intent to harm, you are very probably safe from any action. At least here in America. See, we have a thing called Freedom of Speech. This gives us the right to offer our opinions, commentary, and/or feelings without legal recourse. However, if we make untrue claims meant totally to bring them to ridicule or embarrasment, then that might be actionable, depending on the forum it is presented.

However, you live in New Zealand, and may have some issues with YOUR laws that you might want to check out.

And in closing.... who cares?? Do you really think that what you send in a personal, private letter to someone is going to cause them such anguish and turmoil that they are going to pursue you (either legally or directly) from half-way around the world. Don't give yourself that much credit.

 

[Licljim]

Thanks

Thank you, Halket, for that illuminating reply. I am now clearer in my mind as to whether it was politic to write such a letter, and your message - though a purist might consider its concluding phraseology a trifle short on urbanity - furnished much of that clarity.
The point you make about the unlikeliness of legal recourse being taken by the recipient of a private letter over its contents is no doubt a highly valid one. But a wounded ego, especially one of more than ordinary dimensions (such as the one our 'author' gives ample indication of possessing) may - and I am sure you are not unfamiliar with the phenomenon - generate the motive force for some quite spectacular (and unexpected) acts of retaliation. It is this aspect - always possible, if not in some estimations overly probable - that gave me pause: not that I gave myself "that much credit" that I considered my lightest statement, so to speak, of overwhelming importance to one and all.
Also, I did have a vague suspicion that America did include in its repertory of common privileges that of Freedom of Speech. I am grateful to have it confirmed.
Sincerely yours

 

[Licljim]

Clarification

Dear Haklet,
I am aware that my recent reply may appear to be somewhat testy;it was made on the assumption that your message was worded with solemn deliberation.
However I am not unmindful of the possibility that remarks couched in such terms as yours were, may sometimes be made in a kind of robust, bantering spirit that is not at all inconsistent with good-neighbourliness and geniality. If that was indeed the spirit in which your remarks were intended, please be good enough to consider mine unwritten; in which case you may put my response down to a clumsy misdiagnosis(venial, I hope) of intent.
Sincerely

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

Indubitably !

The pain was etched on to our writer's face, every aspect of his countenance devoted to conveying his anguish to the author. Tiny rivulets of sweat and tears coursed through the crevices of his grimace as he read the prose and, as a stream simultaneously conforms to and molds the rock it flows through, so too was the sweat indirectly the source of his agony. But the cause of our writer's discomfort (an emotional injury from reading other excrement by the author, incidentally) was inconsequential at the time, indeed, any thought of the nature of his mental injury or its gravity would have to wait. My mind had stalled on the twisted mask the torment had caused our writer's cherubic freckled face to become, the one that, in recognizing his pain, my own visage had come to mirror subsequent to reading his original post. That the knowledge of his distress would indubitably cause me parallel misery was, in my mind, an accepted fact, and I was surprised that the other, less fortunate contributors to this site, around me, expressed shock when first perceiving the tears on our writer's face. Our writer's shock was my shock, the pain was my pain, and the anguish too was my anguish.

No one writes like this - - indeed, no one even "thinks" like this. And worse yet, no one, who plans on being read and taken seriously by another, uses (abuses) the English language as our writer. I fear that our writer's eventual letter will be tossed into the garbage after a reading of the first paragraph.

Lawsuit ? No, dear writer. No one will even read your words long enough to care.

IAAL

 

[Licljim]

Reply to I AM ALWAYS LIABLE

Dear I AM ALWAYS LIABLE,

Thank you for your response. However I must confess to finding your remarks (even those that had some semblance of gramatical coherence) far from lucid.

There are so many impassioned references to "sweat", "agony" and "misery", and to "cherubic countenances" and "freckled faces" that I was wondering whether you were exercised by the plight of some poor overtaxed manual labourer (perhaps some relation of yours who has been sold into slavery)or whether you were trying to call my attention to some unfortunate schoolboy (suffering not only from freckles but also from additional, unspecified 'agonies')who was undergoing some pretty frightful privations.
Also, your metaphors chop and change in such a bewildering fashion that I feel the only plausible explanation of the thing is that you must have written your piece during a light nap.

Whatever the real focus of your 'essay', the one thing that stands out with anything even remotely approaching clarity is that you harbour a serious, if inarticulate, animus towards some anonymous "writer". Speaking strictly as a third party, and as one who wishes you well, I hope this "writer" hasn't put it across you too badly.

However I am in total agreement with you as regards your second paragraph ("No one writes like this - - indeed, no one even "thinks" like this. And worse yet, no one, who plans on being read and taken seriously by another, uses (abuses) the English language ......")- which I interpret as your commentary (reflexively, as it were) on your first paragraph. Absolutely spot on! Attaboy, IAAL! You couldn't have illustrated the splendid virtues of self-criticism more brilliantly.

Well, good luck, old chap. I hope you will not take umbrage if I urge you - purely in a spirit of friendship and goodwill - to seek out the services of some reputable teacher of English syntax. Just syntax. Your vocabulary, as far as I can tell, is in fine fettle - if a little undisciplined; but that's a trivial matter that I'm sure you can rectify one your own, with a little will-power.

Sincerely

 

[JETX]

Hey, 'Lickjim', as we used to say on the playground during recess, "You, sir, are a pompous ass!".

We have much more important 'jobs' on this forum than to continue reading your diatribe. You originally asked "Is it actionable to criticize and author's claims". We answered your question. Now, you have apparently decided to continue with your feeble attempts to impress the world with your being a 'wordsmith'. Who cares?? Get on with your life and take your drivel elsewhere.

Since you are in Australia (New Zealand is really just a 'lost province'), you might be able to understand if I said, "With the boring way that you speak, YOU would have been the first one banished from the tribe!"

Or, another way, making it even simpler so that you can understand.... "You ARE the weakest link.... Goodbye!".

[Okay gang, lets move on to other posts and let this one die a slow and lingering death!]

 

[Licljim]

Reply to Halket

Dear Halket,
Which tribe? What link?
No, but seriously, I acknowledge that you answered my question (I have also dealt with it in a message I sent you to JRofTX@bigfoot.com).

However IAAL's response was nothing but pure blustering rant (that did somehow filter through the verbiage). The point then, Halket, is that my "diatribe" as you term it was a reaction to sheer gratuitous abuse flung across the internet in the guise of 'advice'. I approached you (and your "gang") for advice, not effrontery. I don't know if you recognise it yet, but it seems as though lawyers in America feel themselves licenced to behave in the most high-handed and graceless manner towards their clients. In more civilized countries (like NZ) the client-professional relationship is of a considerate and refined nature - and finds no parallel whatever in the scurrilous way it seems to be conducted in America.
In addition, you and your colleagues seem to be violently prejudiced against ordinary English. Do they teach that to you in school during sessional hours, or do you imbibe it in the playground during 'recess'?
I'm sorry to imply that America is barely civilized, but you must admit, I think, that a country like that - where things aren't considered 'normal' unless school kids slaughter each other with firearms, where "silence" means 'the sound of gun-fire', and where half the population seems afflicted with an ingrained homicidal neurosis - can scarcely stake a claim to civilization. No wonder you consider it 'au naturel' so to speak, to fling invective at people who simply seek your help; perhaps it is the most delicate, most decorous way you know!

It's tragic, but there it is. At least that's my opinion - and, I think, the opinion of most right-thinking people.
Perhaps those who don't happen to possess firearms express themselves in other ways - as, for instance, lawyers do with their clients. Sorry! but I just couldn't resist that.
Good day.

 

[maryp]

HEAVY STUFF! I think I need another glass of wine!

 

[I AM ALWAYS LIABLE]

My response:

"ordinary English" ?

Where ? What country ? What planet ?

No one since Elizabethan times, or perhaps, the Renaissance,
has ever spoken in such a manner. Well, I'm wrong.

I cannot imagine ever having a face-to-face discussion with this writer for fear I might fall asleep from sheer boredom, and fall upon him / her in the process, causing severe personal injury to the both of us.

I sincerely would never have thought that there was someone who actually spoke like a Roget's Thesaurus. My mistake.

Zzzzzzzzzz.

IAAL

 

[Licljim]

To IAAL

Dear IAAL
I'm sorry to have so offended your instinct for the mot juste. I promise to make a sincere attempt to improve my style.
In passing, I'm graitfulle for havinge it pointed oute to me that mye delivery is Elizabethan. Howe madlye intrestinge!
A truce is indicated, I think, dear IAAL?
Hey, wake up! Don't you know it's bad manners to doze off when you're being addressed?

 

[Licljim]

Message to Halket

Dear Halket,
You're quite right. Ignore my last post. Goodbye.
But I am grateful for your initial reply. Sincerely.

P.S.
Have been scouring the zoological literature for subclassifications of Equus hemionus and Equus africana without succeeding to locate the one you specified as "pompous".
Linnaeus missed that one, I think.

Regards

 

[Licljim]

To Halket

Re Linnaeus: Do you think he might have omitted to visit New Zealand?
Perhaps he did, eh?