On 10/26/22 15:46, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
We are a diverse group of people and many here are not native speakers
of the language. I suggest that using sarcasm or satire in this group
is an ineffective and confusing method. If half the audience takes the
sarcasm or the satire seriously, the argument will cancel itself out.
You have persuaded me (via private mail) that at least satire is
unlikely to work well in IETF context. I'd support a document that
recommended against using it.
More generally, if you write something in IETF context that is meant to
be interpreted as the opposite of the literal meaning of those words,
and don't explicitly say that, it's not surprising if someone who isn't
a native English speaker doesn't understand what you intended.
However there is something that might not be universally understood
here, which is that this kind of response is actually a very common
convention in (at least American) English. When someone makes an
argument that is so unreasonable or unsupportable that any normal kind
of response (like refuting logic, providing additional information,
clarifying question) seems pointless, it's common to respond in a
non-literal way. Satire and sarcasm are similar in that respect, in
that the recipient is supposed to realize (without being told) that the
speaker doesn't mean that response literally.
Quite often the unreasonable/unsupportable argument will be labeled
"ridiculous" (from a Latin word meaning "laughable"), and the response
will be intended as some form of ridicule of the argument.
So while I understand and accept the argument that we shouldn't use
satire or sarcasm in IETF, I think it will take time for English
speakers who are accustomed to that convention, to learn to not respond
to such arguments in the conventional way. And I suspect we need some
other way to respond to those kinds of arguments, without having to
pretend as if those arguments were in any way reasonable.
Keith
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