On 8/1/2011 10:08 AM, Hadriel Kaplan wrote:
Fascinating. I had no idea that there even*was* such a phrase in common usage, let alone that there was known etymology for it. One learns something new every day.
But I meant it quite literally: a moderate/humble/etc. proposal for Friday meeting schedule.
Hadriel,
Your proposal looked entirely serious to me and the only cultural import I saw
was one of respecting people's desires to get home, perhaps a bit more than our
desire for lunch at a reasonable hour (except for Spain)...
I've seen the phrase used frequently for just the sort of thing you offered,
namely something of limited scope and intent, seeking a narrow, pragmatic
improvement. And it seems pretty clear from the multiple responses that other
folks interpreted your posting similarly.
Some phrases do indeed become cultural and linguistic icons, but it never
occurred to me that anyone saw this phrase that way. Given a couple of thousand
regular participants in IETF lists, I suspect the list of such latent
sensitivities is quite long.
My own concern about this is that I never enjoy being reminded, once again,
about just how poorly educated I am, since I hadn't heard of Swift's essay...
d/
--
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net
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