Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
On Mon, 2013-07-15 at 21:40 +0200, Ralf Corsepius wrote:
Just think about what you'd tell me, if I tell you: "You must do it
this
way" ... You'd likely take it as a rudity.
However, this is the 1:1 translation of what Germans would use to
express what US Americans are likely to express as "You may want to
consider doing it this way" ... A phrase I would take as "pretended
politeness", when being used in German,
My ignorance of German is almost perfect, but I'm fluent in Spanish.
There one has the alternative of saying "hay que hacerlo así" (roughly
"one should do it this way") which is more neutral than a direct
reference to the other speaker and wouldn't normally be offensive. This
also works similarly in English. "You may consider, ..." is to my mind a
specifically American idiom which I've mostly seen in mailing lists,
though I have caught myself using it.
I have no problem with "I would try" or "have you considered." I have had
several people tell me I was doing things the wrong way because I didn't give a
long explanation of why what I was doing is the only acceptable solution. I
realize I don't always have all the context, so being a bit polite rather than
assuming that (a) I have the only solution, and (b) I have the right to ignore
their question and provide an alternate solution instead of providing the
solution they requested.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
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