Perhaps an interesting exercise to Fingerspell the "concept of Fingerspelling" as necessary adjunct to ASL.
fingerspelling is "necessary to ASL" in the same way that the use of individual roman characters is "necessary to written English", or perhaps a better example why character based / logographic written languages (Chinese, Japanese etc) where a sign character stands for a complete word or concept, also always have a written system allowing foreign words to be spelled out.
drphil, I really don't mean this to be rude, but it's likely going to read that way:
I know that you are uninterested in learning any ASL for yourself, however when people come here and post (or look in the archives for answers) they hope (and should be able to expect that) the people responding to their inquiry have actual knowledge on the topic in which they are answering.
You've made it clear on multiple occasions that you don't know sign language, you don't want to know sign language (and in your ignorance, implied that it's not as good as spoken language) - we understand and respect your point of view, but respect ours in return.
If you're going to post comments answering someone's legitimate question here - please stick to topics in which you have actual knowledge.
Posting commentaries about a language in which you have not actual knowledge doesn't help anyone.
