Yaieee! On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 01:32:28AM -0400, Terry Reedy wrote: > > >Saying a flat "no" alone, without qualifying your statement is > > >generally interpreted as rude in English...
> As a very much native English speaker I disagree that 'No' is > necessarily rude. I never said it was necessarily anything. Generalities generally have lots of exceptions. :D It definitely isn't *necessarily* rude, and I didn't interpret Gabriel's message as rude. I was merely pointing out that such statements are often interpreted as rude, whether or not they were intended that way. FWIW, my post wasn't intended to be a post at all, but instead a private message to Gabriel. I guess I zigged when I should have zagged... ;-) That said, what he did do, was to contradict a statement which was literally true, in an abrupt manner. Lots of people would interpret this as rude demeanor. His commentary was spot on, but the way he went about making it has a tendency to make some (perhaps many) responees defensive, if not belligerent. But, if I actually thought Gabriel was intentionally being rude, I wouldn't have bothered to say anything, and just deleted all his posts. :) I don't even think an apology was warranted... On Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 07:01:23AM -0700, Paul McGuire wrote: > Geez, man, this is Usenet. If you want rude or condescending, the > answer would have been "No, you flatulent moron." Or maybe the > alarmist, "No! No! No!" Sure, those statements would generally be considered *blatantly* rude (but still sometimes may not be, in context). This does not mean that less blatant statements are not also rude. Geez indeed... > I see the unqualified "No." often on this list, I see it lots of places, and maybe as much as 1/3 of the time, I see it start flame wars. It seemed clear to me that Gabriel had no intention of being offensive... All I'm saying is that if you want to avoid offending some people unintentionally and needlessly, it's a good idea to avoid making curt statements, especially curt negative statements. If the intention is to signal that more is to come, a simple improvement is to add an elipsis, whose purpose is exactly that: "No..." But even more effective at avoiding the appearance of being rude are statements like "Not exactly..." "I don't think so..." etc. They're not even all that much extra typing. There are lots of times when a simple "no" is exactly what's called for. "Do you like dark Chocolate?" "No." "Are you watching the Celtics game?" "No." Or even, "Is the baby's new shirt blue?" "No, it's green." Being concise is not the same as being curt. Tone also plays a big role, but conveying the appropriate tone of a simple "no" is pretty much impossible in an e-mail. In written communication, it should be avoided like the plague. > Back in my college days, I would not be surprised for a professor to > respond "No." Sure, lots of professors are arrogant, insensitive jerks. Does that make it OK? But, depending on the context and the professor's tone, even the situation you describe isn't necessarily rude. It often isn't. The world is full of Jerks with a capital 'J'. Imagine if it weren't? How nice that would be... But, all I was offering here was a suggestion regarding how to not appear like a Jerk when one isn't intending to. > but as one of the most informed and careful posters on this list, > I'm inclined to give Gabriel a little slack. Sure. But not everyone here knows Gabriel. Not everyone here has seen his informed contributions. Not everyone here has been here more than a day... More than a few people have posted on this list complaining about the sort of responses people provide on this list, and many such complaints are quite reasonable (though sometimes the person doing the complaining is himself rather unreasonable, if not completely bonkers, I admit). I am somewhat incredulous that this required explanation... In the end what I thought would be a nice little, "hey, avoid this pot hole" kind of note seems to mostly have generated a lot of silly noise. I now retire from this discussion, and crawl back into my happy lurk-spot. :) Cheers -- Derek D. Martin http://www.pizzashack.org/ GPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D
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