The phrase is not the only barrier to understanding that exchange. To figure everything that was said out, you also need to know who Mike O'Dell ([1]) is, who Lakoff and Johnson are, and what they said about metaphors. All that is readily available through Google and Wikipedia, but requires a lot of reading. I also seem to be falling behind a bit, as Dr. Who references become more common than Star Trek references. Idioms like "home stretch", "batting this out of the ballpark", or "at the 90th minute" might harm understanding, but they're just one kind of disruptive cultural reference. Yoav [1] http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-odell-code-of-conduct-00 -----Original Message----- From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of t.p. Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 11:13 AM To: Andrew Sullivan; S Moonesamy Cc: ietf@xxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Concerns about draft-moonesamy-ietf-conduct-3184bis-05 becoming a Best Current Practice ----- Original Message ----- From: "S Moonesamy" <sm+ietf@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Andrew Sullivan" <ajs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Cc: <ietf@xxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2013 8:34 AM <snip> > I agree that the metaphors are part of the expressive power of > language and I agree with what is written above. > > The origin of the phrase is from Mike O'Dell and it was written as follows: > > "Increase the light and reduce the heat." > > Mike O'Dell changed that to: > > "Reduce the heat and increase the light." > > I did a quick search of the phrase as used in the IETF. There were > 241 results. 11 of those results were from messages posted to IETF > mailing lists. Four persons commented about that text (I am ignoring > my comments). My reading of the opinions expressed is that they > leaned towards having that text in the document. > > I'll leave this open until 7 January, 2014 so that other persons have > the opportunity to express their opinions. I have not a clue what that expression means; I have never seen it before anywhere that I can recall (speaking my one and only language, English). Is it Quebecois, Canadian, American, IETFian... ? I do not know and cannot imagine it conveying anything to someone who is new to the IETF and is not a native English speaker! Tom Petch > Regards, > S. Moonesamy > > Email secured by Check Point