Re: *** Q: WHAT KIND OF PEOPL...

[Matt Hicks <matt -at- UNIDATA -dot- UCAR -dot- EDU>]

On Sun, 6 Nov 1994, Joyce K. Genser wrote:

> Jan,

> Why are you posting a message in French? I believe the common language on
> this list is english. For people who do not speak french, at least you could
> provide the courtesy of including the translation into english.

> Just one person's opinion.
> J. K. Genser
> Sr. Technical Writer
> New York

Since this is at least the second post I've seen whining (yes, whining)
about Jan's post, I feel the need to comment.

I believe that the message in question was posted in French because the post
to which it was replying was made in good, but slightly fractured, English by
someone in France. I think that Jan was attempting to make that poster feel
more comfortable by responding in the poster's native tongue. While the
message looked fine to my high-school-French-trained eye (and surprisingly I
could read most of it) it may have had fractures of its own. Jan may have
sent the message to the entire list accidentally, or perhaps Jan (don't know
if Jan is a guy or a gal, so I'm stuck for a pronoun) couldn't respond
directly for some reason. Anyway, I think y'all (a word that gets pretty
messed up when I force it through my Yankee nose) could lighten up;
we're an international list. I'm sure that there's someone out their
struggling with all of our posts as much as some of you appear to have
struggled with Jan's. I hardly think that one post in another language
constitutes a problem, and I rather enjoyed the translation exercise. But
if I had been unable to translate it, I would have simply deleted it and
been on my way, as I suspect most of those on the list did.

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Matt Hicks, Tech. Writer, Unidata * I may not agree with what you
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