I don't consoder trhat I did - and your type of pedantry is one of the reasons I hardly ever post anymore.
Definitionj "Your type of pedantry" = trying to make someone else look less than you in almost all respects!
You don't see it that way? Of course you don't as you're never on the receiving end.
I have, I think, admitted elsewhere on this Forum that I am not as smart as you, there are reasons for this which I do not wish to divulge, but it does grate sometimes, not always, to be reminded of this particular deficiency.
When it comes down to it who really gives a shit? Abouit, I would think, as many as think that posting a rebuttal of Vlad's neverending losds of old bollocks is going to stop him continuing to do so.
I agree with you Owlswing. I also find NS's pedantry frustrating too, and it detracts from the flow of argument and discussion on the thread.
For the record I think your comment was entirely appropriate and its meaning was clear (or certainly was to me). As far as I could see you were challenging JP on two related grounds. The first being whether he only thought lying to children was wrong in the case of women spitfire pilots, or in all cases, in which case Father Christmas/Tooth fairy etc is off limits. And secondly if only about women pilots but not Father Christmas etc, how that is justifiable - surely lying is either entirely wrong or allowable in certain circumstances.
But there is a broader point here - we give information to children in an age appropriate way and also in a manner that supports their development and aspirations. Sometimes that means we give a simplified version of the 'truth', which may not be entirely correct (indeed elements of it may be considered to be lying). But that is because the child does not have the developmental capacity, nor is it helpful to development, to try to explain things beyond the level of understanding. As children get older we give more sophisticated versions which might not entirely align with what they were told when younger. But this is because they are now able to understand matters in a more sophisticated manner.
So on this topic, if a very young girl is in a museum looking at a spitfire and photos of spitfire pilots and asks why they are all men (i.e. why none like me) I see nothing wrong with telling her that in fact their were women pilots (that they were in auxiliary rather than combat roles is likely to be beyond the understanding of that child, and actually not valuable). So the message is that, yes girls can aspire to be pilots. Later, when she is older the more sophisticated story, can be discussed as she will be old enough to understand the more nuanced story, that yes women can be pilots (and there are role models down the years) but in the past women were not permitted to fulfil all roles, both as pilots and in many other professions. And that over time we have worked to eliminate that direct discrimination. The final and most sophisticated story is that although we have eradicated (and made unlawful) direct discrimination, all sorts of discriminatory behaviours still exist (glass ceilings etc) and that more needs to be done.
But to allow a very young girl looking at a spitfire in a museum to feel she can aspire to fly it (something that at her age she probable feels to be heroic and exciting, rather than how she might feel about war when she is older) and not feel that flying spitfires is for boys and not girls, is frankly, a good thing. And if that requires a little white lie, or merely not telling the whole story, then so be it.
