I've corresponded with Americans who come here to learn about European politics. Sure, it's fun to see if you remember your high school French, German, whatever, but how can you learn anything if you only have a rudimentary knowlege - or none at all - of a language in which a diary is posted?
Not everyone speaks 5 or 6 languages. And that thread was especially annoying because it became one-upmanship regarding who could speak/write the most languages.
What's wrong with making something understandable by everyone?
Do you realize in Slovakia English ranks 4th on the list of foreign languages people are confident in? Or how hard it is to get, say, the Spanish (just to mention a large nationality with pathetically low knowledge of foreign languages) to stop staring at their own navels?
Then again, even Cafe Babel's discussion forums are only in English.
I suppose we should just admit that the European elites all read and write English passably and get on with it. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
Fuck you, end of story.
You've successfully driven an Evil American™ away from Your Site™.
Happy now?
You fucking ASSHOLE.
but IMHO the better course of action is to just not respond,,,,rather than doing a total blow-up.
and beside you can always remember all the list :) You really can watch out who are you talking to. We all do that.. My boss is always different than my family.:)
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
If the curve's exponential your heart's in trouble ;) When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
You unintentionally got the form of your comment about my form wrong.
So, since you ask, I do feel inclined to avoid you, among other things because you have made it rather clear in the past that the style and content of my diaries does not appeal to you and you would like to see less of it on ET. And if you deny this I'll be forced to dig up your comments and it will get rather unpleasant, so please don't. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
Walk out, but only to cool your head and realise the problem here does not lie with you. Then, come back in.
I see absolutely no reason for you to react with personal abuse like that to Migeru who has been a valuable contributor here, if occasionally a bit more acerbic than is safe in a written forum.
In this case you are completely out of line: he wrote nothing that you could construe as an insult or offensive without trying really hard. I mean, I suppose if I concentrated I could figure out a way that (say) being nasty about the insularity of many Spaniards was anti-americanism. I just can't be bothered working that hard.
That said, Plutonium Page has lots of experience and didn't need to go bananas. Whatever past disagreements there may have been. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
(Expect a lot of participation because, among EuroTribbers, I think that the experience of cross-cultural divides is perhaps the biggest common denominator -- and possible cause of jumpiness?) When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
No one has referred to Americans as evil. Had anyone done so, I'd be the first to demand an apology. Migeru has called out the Bushies a great deal -- that's it -- and there is nothing wrong with that. He has been completely respectful of my views. If anything, you should take advantage of being able to speak with our friends in Europe and demonstrate that we're not a bunch of religious whackjobs, because I think it helps to calm everyone across the Atlantic down and let them know that we're fighting the sociopaths who have taken over the White House -- and that we're finally winning, if the polls are to be believed (and, statistically, I think they are).
I think you're looking for anti-Americanism to such a degree that you're bordering on paranoia. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Hell the other day I was visiting the boyfriend of a friend's daughter. The guy is at university, he's 19. He's the 2nd or 3rd best student in the entire biology branch that he's in (a very talented student in biology basically). I was over at his place fixing his internet connection (which is a basic thing well under our talent that we programmers always end up doing for friends, just like a surgeon always gets asked for an opinion on a friend's runny nose).
When I got his connection back, he rushed on to eBay to see if there were any new video games to buy. As I was there, and we were chatting, I saw him write a question to an eBayer. He wrote it in short SMS!! Holy hell! So I told him "awww come on, why are you doing that? don't tell me it's about speed, I mean I bet I can type in full proper French with accents much faster than you can type in SMS-style ... so why do you do that?". He then admitted to me that sometimes he even wrote to his biology teachers in that SMS-style language, and that though his teachers disliked it and had told him so, being a good student meant his teachers just went along with it. He said he couldn't help it.
I'm telling you, it's becoming a major problem. A lot of online forums in French are beginning to be populated with SMS-style comments.
I don't know the equivalent in English, but I'm sure the same problem exists everywhere that mobile phones exist. I suppose an approximation would be: "Hw r u? c u 2nite?"
By the way, I don't like mobile phones, have I ever mentiond this before? I hope they manage to prove once and for all that these bloody microwaves cook your brain ("they" meaning: not the industry itself, which only ever "proves" the contrary).
Neither is it particularly new in French surely, I remember a trip to Paris about 10 years ago when it took me ages to finally realise why all the video shops had "K7" The Oxford English Dictionary has an interesting article on the French variations used in SMS messaging.
The "real" spelling of braai is, well, braai. So even that has been SMS-ized.
Fascinating.
I've never heard robot used anywhere else, but I've never been to NZ. Most of the SAfricanisms I know of are pretty limited to SA and maybe Namibia -- like a bakkie would just be a pickup truck in Zim.
My favorite was always the way they use the word now, in that it doesn't actually mean now. If I say, I'll do it now, it means I'll do it later. Just now is still later, but a little sooner than now. And now now means the soonest of all, but still probably not right now as we'd understand it.
Migeru is a debater and he does that often without the niceties. He brings the point he wants to bring and leaves; he doesn't target people specifically to do that, he does it with everyone on this forum. If you can't accept that of him and take affront whenever he counters, do not engage. Nationality, gender, or personal feelings did not enter this story before your offensive post.
A 1 for that.
If I remember correctly, I troll-rated myself out of embarrassment last time. DoDo put it very politely when he said "a subthread has been hidded by agreement from both sides" even though there had been no attempt by the radioactive transuranid lady to bridge the gap or reduce tension or even try to understand whether there was any substance to what I said. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
Anyway. Can't we all just get along?
Look, there are no absolute answers here, and very real questions. Bob, and Frank below made the points (both absolutely valid) that using several languages can lead to feelings of exclusion, and/or to the fractioning of the site. Others (including Migeru above) have pointed out that using English alone de facto excludes other subsets of people - including a lot of Europeans. They are EACH right.
Would you please reconsider your comment? In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
But the idea is also to have an open site where everybody can participate and be a full member of the community, and I try to participate as much as possible according to the rules applying to all, or at least to the front pagers (all 10 of us) In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
Re: I give up (none / 0) I'm out of here and this is final. by Migeru (miguel at math dot ucr dot edu) on Tue Jan 24th, 2006 at 03:42:42 AM PDT
welcome back
P.S hope to be able to welcome back PP as well. I have read you, PP, for over four years now, and would really not like to miss your contribution.
Especially if this forum adopts to a more-langual format, his new cover will be blown within 2 minutes.
The multi-lingual thread was inclusive, not exclusive, and one person who had never posted before did so, if only to say quite graciously that he did not speak French, but Russian. Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith
Now you say you were making a point. The point would have been better made in English -- yes, in English which was explicitly "allowed" in the diary. Others who posted comments in other languages than French and English took the time to explain and discuss. If your point was so important, why didn't you do the same?
Instead of making a positive contribution to the discussion (goes a long way back) on this here at ET, you seem to me to have been fairly exclusive yourselves. Just my opinion. When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind
Not everyone speaks or read English.
I don't remember who was the first person to write a comment in another language than French on that thread, but I remember for sure that that comment was in Dutch.
About flexing muscles and such, my friends and I fight (verbally) every day to see who's better. It's mainly a male thing, I think. But we enjoy our little fights. We've come to the conclusion that when we're 80 years old, and in a wheelchair, we'll still race down the halls to the retirement home's cafeteria.
However, regarding the thread you mention, I wasn't even fighting. I recall having made one silly comment in Dutch in response to either you or your husband, asking where the nearest coffee shop was, after using a translation application as I don't know any Dutch at all. It was meant as a joke, not as a muscle-flexing bout.
And I also recall having tried to decipher the arabic comment, as a challenge, not as a show-off. And even then I added a joke about jihad.
So perhaps there is no need for hasty conclusions about people. I'm talking for me here, perhaps others feel the same.
I thus think that multi-lingual threads are a good opportunity for people to give it a try ... if I didn't try, I'd stick to English and French, the only two languages in which I don't have to think before writing.
Fortunately, I like thinking, and as a result, I like writing in moderate Spanish, poor Russian, obscene Sinhala, or fake Dutch ... and this brings me one step closer to the Spaniards, the Russians, the Sinhalese and the Dutch ... and I like that.
Write in French and I'll find it great that you're trying. I won't even begin to consider that you're showing off or anything of the sort. And even if you were, I wouldn't give a damn. That's valid for me ... but since we're all different, you're entitled to disagree ... but please, if you start cursing, do it in Dutch so I can learn a few swear words on the way ;))
