Split transaction: deposit/withdrawal meaning reversed?

[Colin Law]

On 7 April 2012 17:58, Wm Tarr <wm.tarr at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2012-04-07 16:22, Bob Taylor wrote:
>>
>> Dear Jc,
>>
>> Perhaps it will help to explain something which may not have been made
>> clear.  The register in GC is used for two really quite different functions.
>>  I know folks here think they are doing "double entry" bookkeeping, but in a
>> double-entry system one made first an entry in a Journal (so-called because
>> kept daily) and then posted the entries to income, expense or capital
>> accounts (that is to say, the amounts were written on ledger pages).  The
>> journal entry was complete and balanced.  The account entries (called in the
>> text books, T-accounts, because they look like a capital T) had only a date
>> and amount and perhaps a page and line reference to the Journal so that the
>> transaction could be traced back.  (Manual bookkeeping was a very great deal
>> of work.).
>>
>> GC replaces the Journal and T-accounts with the Register.  Each entry in
>> the register represents an entry in the T-account, but shows also the
>> Journal entry.  This is readily apparent when you press the Split button,
>> which opens a sort of window onto the Journal entry.
>>
>> Actually if you open the General Ledger window on the Tools menu you will
>> see what amounts to the General Journal. One could use it for that purpose
>> but in GC one can make a journal entry in any register and the entire
>> transaction will appear in the register for every account affected.
>>
>> Let me add that the Journal/ T-account concept is fundamental to
>> accounting even now, although no one keeps books that way any more.  See any
>> financial accounting text book.
>>
>> I do hope my explanation helps clear up your confusion and does not add to
>> it.  If the latter, please ignore.
>>
>> Regards and Best Wishes, Bob
>>
>
> I think this message was plain rude, to the OP, we are not all like that.

What?  To me it seemed very informative and helpful.  I certainly
learned from it.  In what way is it rude?

Colin L.