Re: nice review, with one exception

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Re: nice review, with one exception
by yman on Sunday 20/Jan/2008, @08:15

I think I'm all chilled by now. maybe listening to that keynote put stuff into proportion.

I didn't mean to be offensive [biting lip in order not to add some more stuff that's quite irrelevant], but comforting those I offended by offending me isn't exactly going to lower the flames. or at least, it wouldn't have if I were someone else. fortunately I'm me, and I've already decided to give the subject a rest.

now, about flying off the handle: just understand one little thing, please: not everyone is like you. like I said, where I come from, that is offensive. in your culture, it's no big deal. in mine it is. I can pretty much understand why it's not a biggie for you (at least I think I can, by going into emulation mode), but you don't seem to understand me. that might be because I've simply not told you the name of the culture I come from, and I also have no intention of doing so.

about that limited vocabulary comment: I took you to be a native English speaker. lots of those (I'm not saying most) know even less words than I do. this is quite surprising, because I didn't grow up in an English speaking environment. in truth, I don't know a good drop-in replacement for that word in that sentence either, so I would have probably wrote it completely differently.

there are plenty of intelligent people who can't express themselves in the clearest manner possible for various reasons. I, for instance, usually explain things in every technical way, trying to get every word to literally mean what I want to say, regardless of what it means to the person I'm speaking to. (guess I just called myself intelligent. heh). or for example someone managed to explain to me the definition of feeling hate in a very "fuzzy" way. just because you aren't (at the moment) a poet in the English language, doesn't mean anything. or maybe you are, but the kind of words you use don't speak to me?

I guess what I'm trying to do is apologize for offending you, without withdrawing what I said. this is indeed an odd affair for all parties involved.

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Re: nice review, with one exception
by jospoortvliet on Sunday 20/Jan/2008, @10:48

Well, I didn't (and don't) want to be involved in the discussion you had with the other guy - but I would like to say I understand what you said. You might have overreacted, but your point is valid, and I won't promise anything (I tend to forget) but I'll try to use other terms in the future.

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Re: nice review, with one exception
by Paul on Sunday 20/Jan/2008, @11:36

> I'll try to use other terms in the future.

Please don't, I love your articles. Let's not censure ourselves to make some people happy. If you have to obey to every single religious sensibility then you might as well stop talking about technologies and drop KDE to be sure not to upset the Amish reading this.

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Re: nice review, with one exception
by mactalla on Sunday 20/Jan/2008, @12:40

I just want to say that I think you're handling this situation better than most others I see in this thread. We can never know the effect that our words or actions will have on every single person in the world. As the project grows we will continue to have more and more people with different backgrounds. Without knowing someone's past or current situation, we can't anticipate how something we feel is innocent might negatively affect them. As a physical example, peanuts seem quite benign, even tasty. But to certain people they could spell death. Similarly, if someone had been attacked by a dog as a child, they would likely shy away from visiting anyone with a pet dog.

So, Jos, thanks for trying to understand yman and where he/she is coming from. And yman, thanks to you as well, I see you're also trying to understand others' culture and the definition of the word to realize it wasn't intended to be offensive. English is a very confusing language. One of the most common mistakes I hear from others is 'fun' vs. 'funny'. They both have the same root and similar positive connotation, however they are quite distinct in their meaning.

I don't want to prolong this off topic conversation, but wanted to encourage understanding of the different people and cultures within our community.

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