The Background
JPB Gerald was recently interviewed by Anna Roderick (editor in-chief at Multilingual Matters) about his book “Antisocial Language Teaching” in the “Ask the Author” series. About 19 minutes in, talking about different reactions to his book, Gerald says he wasn’t surprised that a lot of people really liked his book, but that he wasn’t surprised either that some people “were just mad” because “they were always going to be mad”. Then he referred to me.
The “I’ve told the story so often I now believe it’s true” Version
“There was one guy who followed me round the internet to talk about how bad my work was, mostly because I called him a racist once before this and then he was mad for two years. And I’m like “You’re proving my point, man, you’re proving my point”, although he weirdly said one day “I won’t do this anymore”. I don’t know,… I don’t know, maybe he had a change of heart although I don’t think he had a change of heart, I think he just decided to shut up. Wierd.
The Facts
During an exchange of emails last December, at 12.38 am on 24/12/2022, Gerald sent me an email which ended:
I will stop mentioning you on twitter if you stop writing about me. A fair truce.
At at 1.11 am on 24/12/2022, I sent Gerald an email which ended:
from today I won’t mention your name on Twitter or any other social media channel again, and I won’t make any further comments on your published work.
What do you think you're doing? 