Re: Content and Intent [Was: Code of Conduct final draft?]



El dv 04 de 08 del 2006 a les 08:49 +0200, en/na Murray Cumming va
escriure:

> >  * be firm, but lighthearted - I didn't suggest "Be Excellent To Each
> > Other"
> 
> Yes. My only objection to that phrase (which I tried in the draft before
> people complained about it) is that it's a cultural reference that isn't
> fully understood by many eople whose first language is not English.

There is a deeper cultural problem this sentence has that goes beyond
language or film background: in many cultural contexts excellent people
is not supposed to request others to be excellent. If you do, you are
somehow failing at being excellent yourself.

I believe nobody thinking in English and having seen "Bill & Ted's
Excellent Adventure" will get this feeling at all. Translate the
sentence to your language, link it to your own background of "Be ..."
recommendations and you probably get a result pretty different from what
Jeff or Glynn would like to express with their best intentions.

We better concentrate on pragmatic recommendations where we are more
likely to get univoque meanings, even if this is not as funny as
building cool rhetoric.

-- 
Quim Gil /// http://desdeamericaconamor.org | http://guadec.org

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