[r-t] What people think they have rung

[John Camp]

At 19:06 on 20 October 2014, Chris02 wrote:

> Don Morrison wrote:
>> I think it all comes back to the recurring issue of whether
>> those actually ringing know what they've rung, or if those
>> with the tidy formalism into which they're trying to fit it
>> know better. Does the dog wag its tail, or the tail wag the
>> dog?

> It seems to me that relying entirely on what people think they are ringing
> is a slippery slope.

I venture here only rarely, but I can spot a question-begging argument
when I see one.  To ask whether people know what they have rung
requires there to be consensus about what they've rung.  But what you
call a method (and why) is what the discussion is about in the first place.

Is this bird a dunnock or a hedge-sparrow?  And who says so?  Or is it 
both?

JEC