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Bob Young's Open Letter to SCO/Darl McBride
Oskie-wee-wee writes "Infoworld is carrying a story about Bob Young (Red Hat, Lulu, Classy Formal Wear, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, etc.) and his open letter to SCO and Darl McBride - in response to Darl's open letter 'defending, in one breath, the SCO suit, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and the Supreme Court Decision in the Eldred vs. Ashcroft case.'"
Darl: "Aaaaargooooos!"
yeah right.
i know the word and the use for it, and i feel it is ridiculous and flame-inducing language.
any dictionary (online even) will give you synonyms for words like these. it was used to invoke a negative response, and never did i say anything else about the use of this word than it being rude.
you, and the anonymous reply-er presume i misinterpreted the word because of it's 'racial sound'. that thought didn't even cross my mind.
let me put it this way: common sense tells me that, even if it does not have an officially documented racial association, this word can be offensive to people who percieve this word as being linked to skin color.
no-one would say "niggardly" in an average group of black people, and expect to be treated with respect. and rightfuly so! being etymologically correct and being considerate are two different things.
now mod me OT again. rightfully so. i just wanted to clarify that you and the other poster were overinterpreting my post quite a bit, without me giving you any reason to do so.
This is a common error. IP laws were originally designed to provide an incentive to add to the public domain.
This is also a common error. Copyright did not start with the Statute of Anne or the US Constitution. The original purpose of copyright was censorship, specifically to stop anything being printed which the authorities did not approve of.
Allright 'arrogance",
...but the root word is probably related.... Probably. Yes you read that very careful before you copy-pasted. Nonetheless, I agree it's not likely to be related. So, were this my original point, I would admit I was wrong, and yes I would have "shut up". But it was clearly not the point. I already explained this in the post you were replying to.
I will capitalise my sentences, to make myself look more educated. You missed my point.
You also have a problem with logic. You say the thought of its racial sound didn't cross your mind, yet that's what concerns you: are you assuming that all "average" black people don't know the difference between Nigger and Niggardly? Who's the racist here?
No, this was not the thing that originally concerned me. I just cited the word 'niggardly' from the original post because it was the most obvious inflammatory word.
Not one line in my posts denied the fact that in etymology, the word 'niggardly' is not derived from 'nigger' (although I admit that I didn't look up if there was a link between the two or not). Actually, your post hands me a stick to beat the argument with:
In my opinion, the properties that define a troll-post have a lot to do with the perception of the reader. This was what I was talking about, and not about the possible negative connotation of the word 'niggardly'. You and other people replying to me repeatedly missed the point completely.
Furthermore, I highly object to you calling me a racist because I state that in an average group of black people the word "niggardly" would likely be misunderstood. The same holds true for an average group of caucasians.
Absolute meanings of words are only relevant in a discussion between people who know the meaning of the word. Not everyone is educated and precise in their use of language, and many people are not native English speakers (writers). Thus, the average group of people (white or black) are likely to misinterprete this word.
Again, this was not my original point at all. My orginal point was to tell the stupid troll to get a life, or at least improve the quality of his moderator-deception schemes. Saying someone is 'niggardly' is similar to calling him a 'cheap bastard', which is in my opinion quite strong language for no apparent reason. A hallmark of your average troll. Explain to me where this logic is flawed, and I will admit I am wrong and "shut up".
I will not ask you to tell me you were wrong. I will not tell you your logic is flawed, or attack you on the use of capitalisation in your posts. I would like to suggest you do the same and keep this discussion decent.
(One more Offtopic, I wonder how long it will take me to descent from Excellent to Good)