Hi, Warren,
On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 11:39 AM Warren Kumari <warren@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 12:16 PM Carsten Bormann <cabo@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On 2020-07-17, at 18:05, Warren Kumari <warren@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Is this a "someone (unreasonably) digs their heels in, and then is
> > sufficiently unwilling to change that they suffer bad consequences”?
>
> I just wrote in a different thread, offline:
>
> > Its a very useful metaphor for someone who just doesn’t want to accept some part of reality and incurs unwanted consequences from actively, happily ignoring it.
Ah! Now I get it! Cool, thanks....
> > I haven’t found an English-language equivalent…
>
> Sorry about turning this into a thread about German culture.
*You* didn't, Spencer and I did :-)
Idioms can be interesting and a useful way to communicate something
with substantial subtleties. Perhaps we should have an ietf-offtopic@
list where we can have general chats to share interesting asides,
etc..... although, the more I think about it, the more I suspect that
that is what ietf@ is :-)
I wonder (for about 30 seconds) about a mailing list or, maybe better, a wiki on obscure language at the IETF. This would absolutely have worked there, for follow-ups, and I'm pretty sure I'm hard enough to understand that I could populate half of it myself.
I remember the first time I used the phrase "let me give you a heads-up" with a Chinese manager, who had no idea what I meant until I explained that some animals post a lookout to watch for predators while everyone else eats, so when the hawk flies over, the lookout barks or whistles and everyone else raises their head to see what is happening. Meerkats do this (https://animalfactguide.com/animal-facts/meerkat/#:~:text=One%20meerkat%20will%20stand%20on,lets%20out%20a%20distinctive%20bark.)
Or, I could have googled for https://www.theidioms.com/heads-up/, but I like meerkats.
Best,
Spencer
