Communications (was Re: Developers phone also fit for early adopters?)

Richi Plana myopenmoko at richip.dhs.org
Fri Jan 26 20:48:10 CET 2007


On Fri, 2007-01-26 at 13:40 -0500, Steven Milburn wrote:
> Sean: I think you missed the sarcastic hyperbole that Marcus was
> attempting to use.  He was basically saying that calling you liars
> would be about as wrong as assuming since he didn't reply, he must not
> have read a post.  It's a weak comparison, but no, he's not seriously
> calling you all liars.  I could be dead wrong here of course, but
> that's how I read it.  

And with that, let me state that I think it important to use Figures of
Speech as little as possible in these mailing list. For one thing, many
of the members of these lists don't have English as their primary
language (I know I'm one of those). Second, with so many people reading,
it just increases the chances of miscommunication.

If simple, concise sentences are still prone to misunderstanding,
imagine how much things like sarcasm, irony, hyperbole, etc. could be
misinterpreted.

That said, things like analogies are great for explaining things. Though
I must admit to not being able to understand an earlier analogy equating
GSM and EVDO to modern trucks and steam locomotives (is one faster and
capable of going in flexible directions but carrying smaller payloads
while the other stronger, but slower and only go in fixed
directions? :) ).
--

Richi





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