Etiquette and changing of threads

[Bill Davidsen]

Les Howell wrote:
> On Mon, 2013-07-15 at 10:47 +0100, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>> On Mon, 2013-07-15 at 06:27 +0200, lee wrote:
>>> You need to realise that native speakers of English have a tendency to
>>> be overly polite and to expect others to be just as overly polite as
>>> they are, in ways non-native speakers of English mostly cannot fathom
>>> (at least Germans cannot).  At the same time, non-native speakers of
>>> English (at least Germans) can come across to native speakers of
>>> English
>>> as utterly rude, without any intention to come across like that and
>>> without knowing that they do. --- For example, what I just wrote is
>>> probably somewhat rude, without me intending to be.  It's because I'm
>>> German, and the totally different mindsets of English and German
>>> "collide", which would make it extremely complicated and requiring a
>>> great deal of elaboration to put it in such a way that it doesn't seem
>>> rude.
>>
>> I think you're over-generalizing here. In my experience German speakers
>> are just as polite as English speakers, especially if their English is
>> as good as yours. Possibly some may come across as rude when their
>> English is less good, as when one is learning a language one tends to
>> say things more bluntly due to feeling more restricted, but it can also
>> work the other way, when the beginner appears to be overly formal.
>> Idiomatic expression and fleeting cultural references account for a huge
>> proportion of everyday speech and a lot of that bleeds into written
>> communication.
>>
>> In my experience, national stereotypes are an unreliable guide in
>> everyday life, though one thing that does seem to be different from one
>> culture to another is the kind of thing they find funny. But that's
>> another story.
>>
>> poc
>>
>
> Culture is absorbed.  I spent many years in Asia.  When I returned to
> the United States, I would go to parties, and whoever I spoke with and I
> would move slowly across the room and eventually no one was talking to
> me.  An Asian friend and I were talking later and I mentioned this to
> him.  He told me that in Asia people stand close, within a few inches.
> The culture's "personal bubble" is very small.  American's personal
> bubble is a couple of feet.  So I would get close, the person would move
> away, I would get close and we would slowly move across the room.
> People felt uncomfortable with me without knowing exactly why.  Once I
> knew this I could adapt, or use it as needed.
>
> In the same way, Americans have basically only three pronouns and every
> other method of addressing someone comes as public, personal, or formal.
> But in many languages, there are different ways to talk about distinct
> family members, for example Korea in formal language has specific names
> for first born son, or grandmother on the mothers side, or grandfather
> on each side.  At least that is what I was told.
>
Interesting that it happens in the nouns, Latin had a lot more verb tenses, I 
vaguely remember a set of pluperfect tenses of verbs, although neither the words 
nor the rules for using the tenses.

-- 
Bill Davidsen <davidsen at tmr.com>
   "We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked."  - from Slashdot