christian@cs.rutgers.edu (11/28/90)
I have gotten a complaint on a grammatical note included in a posting by Richard O'Keefe. This was clearly a failure in my moderation. I allowed the posting with minimal reading, because I discovered that I had inadvertently missed it when reviewing last night's group. Had I read it more carefully I would have noted that Richard got caught in a cultural difference between the U.S. and elsewhere, and returned his posting for adjustment. I trust readers will note that he is posting from Australia, and will take into account that things may appear impolite in one culture that are not in another. Certainly the use of Mr. O'Keefe is both gramatically correct and polite in the U.S. In the U.S., the use of the last name alone often gives the impression of being cold, and in some contexts could even be taken as insulting. I get the impression from reading British novels that usage is somewhat different there. --clh
ok@goanna.cs.rmit.oz.au (Richard A. O'Keefe) (11/30/90)
In article <Nov.27.19.20.02.1990.12732@athos.rutgers.edu>, christian@cs.rutgers.edu writes: > I have gotten a complaint on a grammatical note included in a posting > by Richard O'Keefe. I was about to post an apology about this., but first an explanation. If I want to refer to our excellent moderator, I may refer to him respectfully as Hedrick. That is the convention used in scholarly debate in the USA as well as elsewhere. Does Sedgewick in his book "Algorithms" refer to "Mr Dijkstra" or "Mr Floyd"? He does not. When Barton, Berwick, and Ristad refer to Shieber, do they call him "Mr Shieber"? They do not. This despite being US authors. In the "Divorce and Remarriage -- Four Christian Views" book that I mentioned recently, the authors call one another "Heth" and "Richards" and so on, despite all being US authors and knowing each other's proper titles. Why _can't_ I refer to our moderator as "Mr Hedrick" without disrespect? Because he might be Magister Hedrick, or Dr Hedrick, or Professor Hedrick, or The Right Rev. Hedrick, or the Hon. Hedrick, or Major Hedrick, or any of a number of things. To say "Mr" would be to make an implicit claim that he had no better title, and in a written debate is a put-down. USA *spoken* usage may be different from NZ usage (which is where I grew up), but this is a *written* forum. [I worked in the USA for 4 years, and nobody *ever* called me "Mr O'Keefe" to my face. A Texan _did_ call me "O'Keefe".] For me the issue wasn't and isn't warmth/coldness, but respect/disrespect. It is polite to be respectful to someone you are arguing with, but it seems hypocritical to pretend to be warm to someone you are in the process of strongly disagreeing with. The explanation, then, is that Siemon's repeated references to "Mr O'Keefe" came across as an insult. I got angry, and that's why I flamed about the abbreviation point: I was letting off steam there so I could treat the rest of the text fairly. Given that USA convention accepts unadorned surnames in *written* debate, we might all do well to avoid calling people "Mr so-and-so" here; it sounds too much like "good for nothing". Here's the apology: James 4:11 Friends, you must never speak ill of one another. Matt. 5:22 But what I tell you is this: Anyone who nurses anger against his brother must be brought to justice, Whoever calls his brother "good for nothing" deserves the sentence of the court; whoever calls him "fool" deserves hell-fire. In this news-group, of all possible news-groups, I should have kept my temper. To those I offended: I can only ask forgiveness. It was wrong. To the two people who wrote to me about this: James 5:19 My friends, if one of you strays from the truth and another succeeds in bringing him back, :20 you may be sure of this: the one who brings the sinner back from his erring ways will be rescuing a soul from death and cancelling a multitude of sins. -- I am not now and never have been a member of Mensa. -- Ariadne. [I guess we've got subtle differences in usage. The last name without a title still seems on the borderline of being disrespectful to me, except in formal references and when referring to politicians. However I admit that you're right about Mr. Hedrick, since properly speaking it would be Dr. Rather than suggest a specific form of address -- since different people seem to read them differently -- I'd suggest instead that we try to avoid taking offense at an imputed tone of voice, since Usenet as a medium doesn't allow tone of voice to come through very accurately, particularly in a group conducted in several languages (English, American, and Australian...) --clh]