AaronJ wrote:
You said (quote):
"Seems to me that a ham who is a jack-of-all-trades-
and-master-of-none would be more valuable to the
"service" than one who is ignorant of most trades
and master of one."

Paraphrasing, you say that a well rounded ham is best for the ham service.

No, you got it wrong. You left out my quotation marks around
the word, "service".

When you finally understand the difference that those quotation
marks make in the meaning of the word, "service", you will
realize that your prolonged argument is irrelevant at best.

That use of the word "service" is found often in ham text but doesn't fit either
of your definitions.

Yes, you are finally getting it. That's exactly what happens when
one uses quotation marks around a word in the following way:

From Webster's "Basic Manual of (English) Style":
"Use quotation marks: to draw attention to ... a usage very
different in style from the context." e.g. different from
the context of those ham texts to which you alluded above.

My quote above, quoted by you, puts "service" in quotation marks
to *draw attention to a usage very different* in style from the
context that you were using, i.e. service to the public. Why are
those quotation marks not drawing your attention to my very
different usage? :-)
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com