What I find inappropriate and unprofessional is not the casual use of a term that may or may not presently have crude sexual connotations; rather that someone would post a link with much worse (and in way ambiguous) language without so much as a warning or suggestion that the linked document might be NSFW, unsuitable for young or sensitive eyes, etc.
-- Andrew mailto:[email protected] Wednesday, August 3, 2011, 12:51:43 AM, you wrote: > So Steve's comment leads to some possibly fruitful > ideas. > The word itself is less the issue than the attitude > it conveys, which is relevant to us as professional > people involved in using and designing hardware > and software. > Frequent usage does not cleanse the word of its > history or offensive associations. Such logic > should be unacceptable to serious people. Lots > of people beat their wives; frequency of wife- > beating doesn't make it right or acceptable. It's > a human failing. > The only acceptable measure is conformity to a > rule--and not mob rule. > In this case casual use of this offensive term > proves not that the word is appropriate but that > increasing numbers of people don't care whether > they offend others or not. Just as they don't > care to take the trouble to speak proper English. > Often now you hear "like I do" rather than the > grammatically correct "as I do." It betrays a > slacker attitude, and it stands out like a sore > thumb when you travel abroad, as I do constantly. > It's easy to spot the Americans -- they dress like > slobs, are mostly overweight, and speak broken English. > It's pathetically sad, and I'm so sorry for my > countrymen. So that's why I speak up when I see > bad habits. Someone has to. > Specifically on the subject of language: it is > a medium of communication. The rule has to be > "what maintains/improves communication?" If you > don't follow rules about meaning, and grammar, and > syntax, eventually you end up being mutually > incomprehensible. Look at what happened to Latin: > people were sloppy, but sloppy in different ways in > different areas, so you ended up with the mutually > incomprehensible Romance languages. > So I point to the use of the rude word as the sign > of a bad habit: not caring about precision, about > meaning, about other people. This bad habit > carries over into other domains of life, like dress > as I said, or like private and public finances. Look > at the present American financial catastrophe (worse > is coming): it came from a sloppy attitude toward > paying one's own, and one's country's, bills with real > income. The justification for paying by borrowing was > precisely "everyone does it." That's fatal. Never > utter that nonsense reason again :) > This is no joke. My daughter has attended schools > in many places in the world, but mostly Asia. We've > seen it up close; the competition is fierce and American > slackerdom (as seen for example in educational attainment) > is leading to ruin. (It's no better in England where > she finished high school.) > If you don't believe me, spend some time at a student > cafeteria at Stanford, Cal-Tech, Princeton or Harvard. > Determine the percentage of those eating there who > have epicanthic folds. > On Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:17:11 -0400, STeve Andre' wrote: >>On 08/02/11 03:32, Jeffrey Race wrote: >>> Indeed the vulgar sexual slang was very inappropriate >>> for a professional site>> >>> --Original Message Text--- >>> From: Ray Bay >>> Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 18:20:49 -0600 >>> >>> Inappropriate use for this site... >>> On Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Jeffrey Race<[email protected]> wrote: >>> <http://www.camblab.com/nugget/slang2.pdf> >>> >>Jeffrey, >> >>I am thinking that you live outside the US, and are therefore not >>quite in tune with popular communications today? >> >>Suck has gone from questionable to common usage, denoting >>when something (or someone) is bad, horrid, in need of change >>or improvement. >> >>I suspected this was the case, it's changing usage, but I was a >>little surprised when I was at a library and found a problem in >>the card catalog software, and talked with one of the lead >>librarians. She hadn't seen the problem that I described, but >>looked down and said "this system really sucks". This was a >>60+ year old woman, who chose the right phrase for the system >>she was forced to use... >> >>--STeve Andre' >> >>ps: She owned a ThinkPad. >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Thinkpad mailing list >>[email protected] >>http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad > _______________________________________________ > Thinkpad mailing list > [email protected] > http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad _______________________________________________ Thinkpad mailing list [email protected] http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/thinkpad
