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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
From my experience in India, the most usual greeting is people holding out their hands for rupees ... sorry, cynicism will out. I'm a paid-up member, remember?
However, the formal greeting (namaste) is really quite special. Our flatmate (a friend who lives in our house from time to time) is currently in Nepal trekking. She should be back any day, and she's right into the subcontinental culture. I'll get her to demo then try to describe it for you all ...
Thinking of India and words, I went to Delhi for a SEARCC conference a couple of years ago. When I arrived, I saw that Comdex Asia, an INTERNATIOinformation technology showcase, was on at the Indian National Convention Centre. Since I had a free day the next day, I hopped a trishaw (or tuk-tuk? never can remember what they're called from country to country) and went early the next morning. There was a line for entry which I joined. Nobody asked for any money. I thought this was dead creepy! I filled out a form, had my photo taken and was handed an ID card on a cord to hang around my neck. Didn't really think anything of it - customs differ from country to country, after all - until I saw a sign saying that December 5 was a closed day for invited guests and the press only ... Looked at my watch, and sho 'nuff, it was December 5. Of course, I was dressed in pretty much standard reporter gear, jeans and chukka boots, with a camera and a camera case slung around my neck. Easy mistake on their part, hmmm? Anyway, a lot of photos, a marriage proposal, a few choice stories (only one of which was ever published) and a lot of free food later, I left, tired and happy. I still have the ID card which, when I looked carefully, had "PRESS" prominently printed on it.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460
addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 460 |
Thanks for the transcript and thanks to Jackie for being the 'guinea pig'. Is there a collective term for participants in a chat session? Chatterers, chatters, chattees …
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
I would like to add my congratulations to all who took part, and my regret that machine problems preented me from joining them.
The transcript makes it look like good fun, and a special congratters to Jackie, who I know was terrified but has kept any hint of that out of her responses, like the good trouper that I know she is!
I'll make sure that I get in on the next one!
Well done, everyone, and thanks to Anu for setting this all up.
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 141
member
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OP
member
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 141 |
Jackie wrote:
> Well now--it was most interesting to read the transcript!
> I see that there were some things left out. The only relevant thing
> left out, I think, was an important word in one of belMarduk's questions:
> the way it is shown, she asks if I was raised in a family. But I recall
> reading the question at the time as: "Were you raised in a wordie family?".
> Makes rather a difference.
I was surprised to read this as I didn't omit anything except for incomplete
messages that were produced as a result of hitting ENTER too soon.
I went back to the transcript and found that the word `wordie' was still there.
belMarduk had enclosed the word in angle brackets. If you know how HTML works,
it treats any text within angle brackets as a tag and doesn't display it. I've
removed the angle brackets and if you reload the transcript page, you should
see the word `wordie' loud and clear.
> Some of the other things left out were the partial questions and answers.
> Several people wrote to me afterwards, and apparently I was not the only
> one to be surprised that hitting the Enter key sent the thing.
> apparently all of you could only see one question at a time. They were all on
> my screen, or at least all that Anu sent me--2 or 3, usually, and scrolled up
> as things were entered.
This test session was useful as we discovered a few glitches. belMarduk (and
probably a few other people) suggested posting the question in the chat for
everyone to see instead of sending it to the guest first. I'll experiment with
this and it may be a better approach as attendees will see the question first
and they will know the answer to what question the guest is typing at the
time, instead of having the question and answer appear at the same time.
> What you all may not have known is that I couldn't initiate anything: I could
> only respond!
This may be my fault in that I didn't explain it to Jackie very well. The guest
can type any message in the chat window and it will appear for all the
attendees. In other words, the guest is not limited to answering questions only.
Thanks again to everyone for participating.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
Anu,
It was a good first attempt. The timing of your session with the maestro of the OED is ever so slightly inconvenient for antipodeans, however ...
Could you make it 7 p.m. GMT in future? That way most of the board users could probably "attend".
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,981 |
>My husband (partner to Bel)
Thanks Marty for unravelling my mention of the word partner in the above quote. I think you were spot on!
I only noticed it myself, when reading the transcript, just now – oh dear! I am definitely not sharing a relationship with Bel (although I don’t rule it out as a concept, given enough money for airline tickets!!!!)
I think the short answer was that it was a quick, off the cuff, joke that didn't really work in the slo-mo nature of the chat session. In a more quick fire situation, I would have been able to hint at the reason but it was all a bit slow and certainly doesn't stand close inspection. Think conversation, rather than essay.
It did indeed relate to Bel's posting on the subject of partners. It would have worked better (and would have been funnier) as "my partner (husband, to Bel)", thus demonstrating the inherent weakness in the on-line-chat process. Even though I can type nearly as fast as I think. I can't do this as grammatically as I would like. To prove it, I have already made several corrections to this message and it still isn’t quite right.
I am sure that because our brain has been trained to take in years of perfectly honed and re-written prose, our brain is rather unforgiving of the imperfectly written word, even when we know that it has been written quickly in a conversational way. The written word, as we have said many times, is robbed of the “twinkle in the eye” that gives away a subtle touch of irony and renders a joke “readable”
This creates a problem in some environments. Do we accept that communications will become more "quick fire" allowing for the possibility of inaccuracy or misunderstanding? Alternatively, do we set higher standards for e-communication, where communication is checked to the same standard as a business letter? In business and politics, misunderstandings cost time and money. We don’t write verbatim minutes of a meeting, should we be careful in publishing a verbatim report of a “chat” conversation. Here, we are amongst friends and no big decisions are being taken, so it doesn’t really matter. In the wider context, how many negotiations conducted using a chat or a whiteboard would bear scrutiny?
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Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 2,204 |
I think that there is already a change in the way that we write, and that there are different changes depending on context. I use e-mail constantly to converse/communicate with my work colleagues. We have developed a chatty style of writing for casual "conversation" messages which has a close analogy to the way we speak when we are face-to-face. We have a totally different style when it is an "Official Communique." As for misunderstandings - well! The potential for misunderstanding in face-to-face conversation is limitless (especially if you are married to the respondent!  ) In some ways, written conversation is better in this respect, as there is time to reconsider a response, and to search for a different meaning. This is nullified, to some extent, in a chat-session such as we have just experienced, of course, but I think that, so long as participants are aware of the potential for misunderstanding and are tolerant, (as everyone is, on this board  ) a convention will build up that removes the worst possibilities for dissent (but probably won't remove the potential for descent  )
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Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 2
stranger
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stranger
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 2 |
Here's a namaste emoticon for y'all:
C=
Enjoy smile
pk
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Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 390
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Nov 2007
Posts: 390 |
Here's a namaste emoticon for y'all:
C=
Enjoy smile
pk how is this a नमस्ते emoticon?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
... and what's it doing in this old thread? Fun to re-read the thread, though.
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