Re: Great Spirit (more BS)

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (luke smith) wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
--snip--
> the best perspective must be someone ON THE LINE... not a
> player on the playing field (or playing field propah...)...

That's not true at all.  Using 'absolute' words like "must" (or
"always" and "never"), rather than a 'majority' word like "usually" is
"most often" (notice that I didn't say "always") a bad choice.

Let me set up one example (of many) where I can with complete
confidence say that even though I'm NOT on the line, I still "know"
that you were in or out.  And this should even satisfy any
math/geometry 'gods' out there.

Let's suppose that I'm about 5 yards from the line, and ahead of me, I
see two cones (obviously not lined up if I'm this far from the
side-line between them) and your foot is landing at some point between
them (or more specifically, at some point between the planes extending
from these cones perpendicular to the line joining them).

If you are, say 1 yard on my side of the far cone, and still on the
field-side of the line between that cone and me, then by the rules of
math and geometry, you "must" (and example of where the use of this
word is correct) also be inside the line joining these two cones, and
therefore, in-bounds.  But yet, I was not "on the line".

And alternately, if you are, say 1 yard on the other side of the
nearest cone, and on the out-of-bounds side of a line both extending
from that cone to me, and extending beyond that cone along the same
line, then you "must" (see comment above) also be outside the line
joining these two cones, and therefore, out-of-bounds.  But yet, I was
not "on the line".

Yes, I agree that for a step roughly equidistant from the two cones,
and given my perspective from inside the field, that it's more
difficult for me to say with surety that you're in or out.  But given
the two lines extending from each of those two cones to me, and your
relative distance from those two lines, as you become closer to one
line or the other, I can be more confident that you're in or out. 
That is, the closer you are to the line that extends from the farther
cone to me, the more confident I am that you are in, and vice versa
with the closer cone and my confidence that you are out.  But yet, I
was not "on the line".

It's important to note, in case you missed it in my set-up of the
situation, that both cones are ahead of me (i.e., both on the same
side of a line perpendicular from the side-line that they're situated
on), rather than me being between them.  Perhaps it's easier
graphically:

   ME

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