Re: Papal visit: Cardinal Newman's 'miracle cure'

On Fri, 24 Sep 2010 08:07:27 +0100, Kendall Down <kkdown@xxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

On 24/09/2010 06:46, Alwyn wrote:

I mentioned at the time that long go, somebody had been put on manual
for calling someone in another newsgroup a 'kook'. However, Ken insisted
that 'nutter' was an affectionate term, and he couldn't see he had done
anything wrong. Gareth disagreed but was in America at the time, and
Celia and Mark took no action.

No, "nutter" on its own is probably offensive and if I had said "You are
a nutter" I would have expected to be sanctioned. However among those
with whom I associate the words "Worra nutter" (or probably better,
worra nutta) expresses amused or even affectionate exasperation and are
not offensive.

I'm not sure if the intent can be taken into account or not. Sometimes
words on a page can be misconstrued though, because the intent of the
author is not realised (I myself recently was guilty of that)

Among my circle of friends it is considered affectionate to say
f**king idiot or similar in very much the same vein as your worra
nutta and no malice is intended. I would expect to be sanctioned for
it if I said it on here though :-)

As I have said, if others see it differently I will accept the usual.

Given what you have said above, I now understand your comments were
not intended as an insult.

As for Mark's decision with regard to Jeff, there is a person on an
archaeology newsgroup to which I subscribe who consistently snips
people's posts to make it appear that they have said something foolish
or offensive[1]. It is a most unpleasant practice and it did appear as
if Jeff was falling into the same habit.

Note 1: I imagine we have all done it occasionally for humorous effect,
but in such cases we have always indicated the humour. Jeff snipped and
then replied to his snippage as though it was the whole of the post or
argument.

My understanding is that Jeff did not maliciously intend to snip Marks
post.(1) He genuinely thought Mark had said no to the question he had
asked. This to me goes beyond simply gross incompetance and as Celia
commented on at the time, possibly some form of Aspergers or similar.
That is an illness and he should not need to apologise for it.

I remember sometime ago I replied to one of Jeff's posts which was
laced with irony. Jeff congratulated me on my wonderful insight and
even when it was pointed out that I was being ironic he said it didn't
matter, I had hit the nail squarely on the head. I remember my jaw
dropping in astonishment at the time :-)

If he feels that he has been misjudged, all he needs to do is
post, "Sorry, I thought that was the main argument" or something of the
sort.

I agree wholeheartedly with that

I don't think Mark is expecting a grovelling and prolonged session
of sackcloth and ashes.

This is what Mark said, which is not the same as expecting Jeff to
apologise for a misunderstanding, imo

_____________________________________________________

If, however, that is incorrect, and your misrepresentation was
actually the result of gross incompetance rather than malice, then
I'll happily retract my demand for an apology. However, I'm only
prepared to do so if you are willing to publicly admit that your grasp
of the English language is woefully inadequate.

So, which was it? Malice, or incompetance?

_____________________________________________________

(1)

Like Mark though , at the time I also assumed Jeff had snipped
maliciously


.

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