Pet Peeve time again - Wordsmith.org

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FAX

This is *supposed to be an acronym for what?

Facsimile Allocated X(trans)mission.

Just the

ma'am.

Just the ... ma'am.
Please, one more clue

See subject.

whales, or coral, one.

Or bishopric.

that's getting personal.

http://www.oxford.anglican.org/page/2896/

See?

heh.

Even if not the case, it may be more tolerable to consider it derived from 'faximile', as CONX could possibly be created from 'connexion'. At least FAX is far less irksome than "shopaholic" in today's word, just another knee-jerk term invented without logic. One might wonder where the 'hol' in it comes from and decide that it should mean "a drunk who shops too much".

The hol came from alcoholic. It's common enough for words at times to be reanalysed morphologically, and then one of the morphemes to be reused. Cf. -gate as a suffix, the n from the following word being fused to the preceding indefinite article, (e.g., an adder, an apron), the non-etymological d in admiral or h in author. It's a common enough process. You might as well ask where the al in alcohol came from. It's the definite article in Arabic, not a part of the word the Spanish borrowed. Yet, no grammar mavens rail against the al in alcohol and say, like the hoi in hoi polloi, that one shouldn't say the alcohol.

...not to mention "the La Brea tar pit" in California...

Not to mention "the The New York Times," he said hoitilly.

Listen, do you suppose the 'gate' morpheme(?) has help or harmed business at the (hideous) Water?

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Not to mention "the The New York Times," he said hoitilly.

Where have you heard that?

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You might as well ask where the al in alcohol came from. It's the definite article in Arabic, not a part of the word the Spanish borrowed. Yet, no grammar mavens rail against the al in alcohol and say, like the hoi in hoi polloi, that one shouldn't say the alcohol.

We borrowed the whole thing, article and all. Not only for this one, but for a couple thousand others too... I guess this could be because in Arabic script the article is attached to the word, so it all looks like one unit.

But when we are naming baseball players we on occasion break the al off. Just ask that wonderful base runner Al Kaline. Too bad he wasn't a pitcher or catcher, because then he might have been part of a battery.

Here is an excerpt from an obscure work (not quoted because it is original): �Workaholic� is another prize winner. Where does the �hol� part come in, does anyone else wonder? Should not this piece of buffoon lingo really apply to a drunk who works too much? And wouldn�t that same (un)reasoning make someone with ESP a Psychoholic?

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...And wouldn�t that same (un)reasoning make someone with ESP a Psychoholic?

Only if your definition of an alcoholic is someone with alchohol.

Aramis, if this is a serious question (I can't tell), the etymology for workaholic is [f. WORK n., after alcoholic.]

the phrase "after ~" is used lexicographically to indicate that the word was not formed following "classical" rules, but instead parrots the form of some other word.

there are many examples of this is English.

It still weirds me out to see that little tilde-lookin' thing, but at least now I can usually figure out what it's referring to.
But what does a rebours mean?

Oh, I think I used it here, a few years ago. But this is an interesting discussion. No more quips from me.

Ah ha; I found two book listings: Against the Grain (A Rebours) and Against Nature : A Rebours, so I'll take it that it means going against something that's been stated.

Is it not? Perhaps suggesting a recovering one? It just seems the offerings to justify such fatuous terms as "shopaholic" are a collection of other wrong things. And anything like 'workic' would not be suitable to those enamored of their own voices, like acronym babblers who are compelled to spout appalling things like "UPC code". Why not 'work addict', (but NOT 'workheroinaddict')?

Not so much a serious question as a cynical misanthropic diatribe. Such fatuous, knee-jerk constructions appear to be a quest for syllables to suit the long-winded. They run in a similar pack with 'orientate' and 'irregardless', for spouters of blather geysers that cannot be content to speak any short term such as ATM or PIN.

> spouters of blather geysers

isn't that redundant?

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Not so much a serious question as a cynical misanthropic diatribe. Such fatuous, knee-jerk constructions appear to be a quest for syllables to suit the long-winded. They run in a similar pack with 'orientate' and 'irregardless', for spouters of blather geysers that cannot be content to speak any short term such as ATM or PIN.

PIN can be ambiguous so the redundancy inherent in PIN number can aid communication.

You can say what you want about orientate but the fact remains that orient is a verbed noun and orientate isn't.

� one shouldn't say the alcohol.

Why not? Personally, I just drink it. And frequently.
But seriously, folks, 'member me? I just dropped in for another look-see, and found that my last posting had been almost four years ago--and a bit dramatic it was, as I recall. But things have obviously changed here, and I will now keep looking in--and maybe contributing. This has been prompted by my receiving a lovely email from Jacqui (a.k.a. Jackie, the well known Carpal Tunnel. Yes, Jackie, I will indeed respond soon. Good to see so many of the old names still here and going strong. Not sure about the formatting of all this stuff--it's different now. Let's hope it's OK. Sorry about the excessive space I've used up for no particular reason, but it's good to be back again.

How do I put a signature here? Good grief!

:cool lusy

Boy, I stuffed that up, didn't I? I'll do better next time

I remember you, lusy, and am glad you're back!!

(Don't bother with the signature... they get real old after a while...

)

2002 was it? Welcome back to the mad house, Lusy.

Is it? I thought it was more like embellishment. Could have gone with 'blatherholic' but the hypocrisy would outweigh the ridicule.

What is ambiguous about PIN? As if it could be a code to pop balloons with? Whatever bank invented that should have foreseen the babble-fest it prompted and opted instead for PID.

stands for Pelvic Inflammatory Disease

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What is ambiguous about PIN? As if it could be a code to pop balloons with? Whatever bank invented that should have foreseen the babble-fest it prompted and opted instead for PID.

Depends on the context. At the gas pump if I use my debit card it asks me to enter my PIN. If I loan the card to the lovely AnnaS and she asks me for my PIN number I don't have to ask her if she means an ink pin or a safety pin.

Is that suggesting that babbling "Personal Identification Number number" is needed to distinguish an acronym from a real item it sounds like? Do some dolts say "Surface to Air Missile missile" so no listeners think they are talking about a guy named Sam? I really think the context should be enough to understand the distinctions [and for credibility, last time I checked, 'loan' was a noun].

If you want to be a loan shark, you�d better check your dentures! It�s commonly a noun but is also a well-established intransitive verb:

USAGE NOTE: The verb loan is well established in American usage and cannot be considered incorrect. The frequent objections to the form by American grammarians may have originated from a provincial deference to British critics, who long ago labeled the usage a typical Americanism. Loan is, however, used to describe only physical transactions, as of money or goods; for figurative transactions, lend is correct: Distance lends enchantment. The allusions lend the work a classical tone.

C. American Heritage

just a polite question, Mr. 11:

do you enjoy language?

"another knee-jerk term invented without logic" (04/24/06 07:46 AM)
"buffoon" (04/27/06 09:19 AM)
"fatuous" (04/28/06 06:32 AM)
"enamored of their own voices" (04/28/06 06:32 AM)
"acronym babblers" (04/28/06 06:32 AM)
"cynical misanthropic diatribe" (04/28/06 06:54 AM)
"hypocrisy would outweigh the ridicule" (05/02/06 06:15 AM)
"dolts" (05/03/06 08:09 AM)

Perhaps the medications don't kick-in until after noon.

And why do they call it "Georgia," anyway? Don't we all *know* who is king? Why "the great State of Maryland?" We all *know* that. Why "Mary," even though it makes a tad more sense than "land," Mary)? What is "octopus" about it, as Ian Flemming or his knock off son implied? It's all arms! And why "knock off?" He's a son, isn't he? I sometimes think that English is a language designed by a loser, spoken by a maniac, objected to by

I think the state names were supposed to be bestowed as enduring honors. It would not seem intuitive to say "[We already know who the present king is] ia". I don't see the babbling angle in 'octopus'; a scientific derivation that makes sense. The point is English used to be more rational but is decomposing along with modern civilization.

of course english is decomposing! i can't read old or middle english, and i know less about german or latin. the language has so decomposed over the centuries that it bears no resemblance to what it once was!

and all along there has been confusion..

one of my favorites is the plant commonly known as columbine, --because some thought the flowers looked liked doves drinking water. the latin name, is (unspellable by me!-- aquaelgia?) from the latin name for an eagle-because other people thought the flowers looked like an eagles talons.. take about differing views!

so does an octopus have 8 feet (pod being latin for foot), or goes it have 8 arms..

well i guess its a matter of how you look at it.. for the most part, only primate have arms, (other animals have 4 legs, not arms and legs) to be consistant, an 8 armed creature is well, wrong, but an 8 footed creature is OK. i guess we'll have to launch an educational campaign to make sure no one refers to an octopus as having arms.

but hey, when or where were humans (in any language or any culture) consistant?

didn't someone say that "consistantcy is the hob-gobblin of small minds" --(and you want to make an arguement for consistancy in things that don't matter?.. isn't that a...(where is sprints wheel of adjectives? i could use an adjective right now) idea?)

Sorry, forgot that 'loan' verb counted as colloquial usage (hillbilly).

All right then, now I understand the octopus gag. I suspect the 'pod' element is a generalization. Those may look like arms to a human, but to the octopus they function at least partly as feet.

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just a polite question, Mr. 11:

do you enjoy language?

Concerned you might have missed this post, I'm repeating it: So, do you, Aramis?

the latin name (kingdon? geneis? species? --one of those-- unless its one i left out) has octopus as belonging to the cephlapod family.. (cephla=head, pod=foot)

knowing as much as we now know about octopuses, i would think calling their appendages fingers would be almost as good a word to use as foot.. (a cephladigi or something of that sort. it's a thought.)

Okay, Cinderella, let me try it a different way. Why say the PIN number? Because when PINs first came out of the closet, nobody who now wanted cash out of an ATM had ever heard of a personal identification number to acronyminate, so "PIN" came down on them like a sudden mystery with cash in her panties. People needed to use it and it didn't make any sense, so they stuck "number" after it. That caught on, the banks decided it was cheaper to use it than hire operators to field questions on what the hell a PIN was to begin with, and so they began to use it, too. That, anyway, is the explanation that seemed most likely at the time I was observing all this stuff going on. The same holds for ATMs, although why they needed both "teller" and "machine" in the longed-out version to begin with is beyond me. People probably just called them cash machines, because that's probably what most people used them for, to begin with. Preferring to use real live tellers for other transactions, because who the hell trusts these machines to record a deposit and, anyway, you might get lucky and it'll spew the works on you and you can take Brunhilde out for drinks and dinner and hoyotaho all night long. So that's about it, I would say. Language has this utility factor, see. People use it. And if something's needed but not particularly catchy out of the box, well, then people will jerry rig it, because it suits 'em better. And if it suits others better too, well, hey, there you go, another bastard,s born of our bastard tongue (See. "Spit Baby"). So the thing is, smell the roses: have fun with English. After all, she's only having fun with you.

hear, here.

"Loan as a verb is entirely standard having been in use since the 16th century, at least; carried over to this continent in the language of early settlers, it has continued in use ever since Its use is predominately American and includes literature but not the more elevated kinds of discourse. If you use loan remember that its regular use is literal; for figurative expressions, you must use lend." [Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of Eglish Usage, p.610]

"Lonyng and leying out of the same for gaines in purchasing landes." [1542-3. Act 34 & 35 Hen. VIII, c. 2. sec. 1.] I've never really thought of Henry Tudor as a hillbilly, but ...

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I've never really thought of Henry Tudor as a hillbilly, but ...

Well, he was Welsh �

Why use something at all if it does not make sense? Obviously acronym letters are intended to represent words, so they should replace them in use, including speech. Repeating what is already said is simply babbling. It can only either insult the listener by implying ignorance on his part or make the speaker appear inept. Once a man working in an automotive shop had the gall to say �VIN number� to me and expected to sound competent! As if it was going to be confused with wine? We have to hope anyone of such limited capacity will never pick up a loaded firearm. In a magazine article, the writer actually bothered to define ABS in the introduction but then went on to put �ABS system� IN PRINT at least three times! This is no more competent than typing �SCUBA apparatus� in a diving magazine. What is so wrong with this is that in a world where so many cannot be bothered with what anything means, these things proliferate like a bacteria colony. This constant expansion of lunacy by the �monkey-hear, monkey say� principle degrades the overall intelligence of entire populations. It is as if a movie entitled �Invasion of the Brain Snatchers� was happening in real life.

Concerned you might have missed this post, I'm repeating it: So, do you, Aramis?

I did catch it but the answer must have been lost somehow. The answer is usually, with obvious exceptions. Have even found archaic works such as Dafoe and (original of) Chaucer to be interesting, as well as some foreign languages even to include Kiswaihili.

language he enjoys; it's just latter-day English he can't abide.

babbling (05/05/06 11:51 AM)
had the gall to say (05/05/06 11:51 AM)
like a bacteria colony (05/05/06 11:51 AM)
expansion of lunacy (05/05/06 11:51 AM)
monkey-hear, monkey say principle (05/05/06 11:51 AM)

Yup, I'm stickin' with my morning theory.

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then went on to put �ABS system� IN PRINT at least three times!

Why did you feel the need to use the plural form of the noun when the plural is adequately indicated by the fact that you have used the number three to modify it? Do you think we need it to understand that it was used more than one time?

yawn

thither, even.

Who is this Aramis from Gee Yaw Juh who's using a Kiwi as an avatar? Pick on your own state's bird - roadkill turkey, is it?

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Who is this Aramis from Gee Yaw Juh who's using a Kiwi as an avatar? Pick on your own state's bird - roadkill turkey, is it?

I had the same sort of reaction when I found someone else using Marvin. feh! (<--lingering anger)

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then went on to put �ABS system� IN PRINT at least three times!

Why did you feel the need to use the plural form of the noun when the plural is adequately indicated by the fact that you have used the number three to modify it? Do you think we need it to understand that it was used more than one time?

Redundancy can be our friend. But Faldage does have a point!

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Who is this Aramis from Gee Yaw Juh who's using a Kiwi as an avatar? Pick on your own state's bird - roadkill turkey, is it?

I had the same sort of reaction when I found someone else using Marvin. feh! (<--lingering anger)

Yep. I get angry enough, and I'll make Sherman's march to the sea look like a bank holiday walk along the mud in Skegness ...

Skegness is a seaside resort town in Lincolnshire, England. The nature of the tides in this area is such that sediment (mud) deposits along the coast and creates a great muddy beach (at low tide) called The Wash.

Huh?

Thank you, oh my Boswell ...

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Thank you, oh my Boswell ...

apropos of very little, I rewatched the "Ink and Incapability" episode of Blackadder last night, in which our hero makes some contributions to the Dictionary, in which, unfortunately, Dr. Johnson had neglected to include: contrafibularatories; anaspeptoc; phrasmotic; compunctious; periconbobulations; interphrastically; pendigestatory interludicule; velocitious extramuralization. [spellings may differ]

great ep!

It didn't matter anyway did it, since Baldrick used it to kindle the Prince's fire ...

Great episode, that one!

I like phrasmotic.

good name for a band.

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I like phrasmotic.

good name for a band.

The Phrasmotics?

Speaking of band names, does it seem to anyone else that band names are becoming weirder and weirder these days, or is it just another symptom of my growing geezerhood? Sometimes I imagine that there is a Name Patrol out there that will come knocking on your door if you choose a band name that has already been used.

"I'm sorry. You're going to have to use a different name for your band. Freaky Frank and the Pistons was used by a band in Flagstaff, AZ during the '70s."

Much cooler just to call it Phrasmotic. The use of "The" and "s" on the end of the name is so uncool these days ...

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"PIN" came down on them like a sudden mystery with cash in her panties.

ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha *breathe* ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

awesome

Well... decided to go with standard correct diction rather than another dialect like Pidgin. No sale. Maybe this will sound better: "Me no likee you argument. You try findee dictionary chop chop!"

Redundancy is just babbling in this case. If there is a point, I do not see it; just sounds like more of trying to justify wrong things with other wrong things, even fake ones. Starting to look like a recurring theme.

geyser.

Hey, Aramis, you made me laugh with your pidgeon English.

Now, may I ask you why you think it is right and proper for you to use another member's avatar? Or perhaps you don't, but that don't stop you. Myself, I think you should scour the web, or your own camera, and come up with one of your own. But that's just me.

I agree. Aramis, you're too mature for that kind of thing.

Problem is that once you upload your avatar it becomes part of the stock avatar pool with no indication of any sort that it is considered proprietary by the uploader or even, as is mine, copyrighted by the uploader. As far as I know there is no way for any of us with proprietary or copyrighted avatars to so indicate or to place them in an otherwise unavailable pool or to remove them from the stock pool once put there.

Why make excuses for him, Faldo? He deliberately linked to my avatar knowing perfectly well what he was doing. Unless he's really dumb as well as being a thief.

Well, no. He went to the avatar pool and selected one. Whether or not he knew that it was in use I couldn't say. Now, however, he knows and should quit using it, I agree. And it looks like he has, so give him a break.

Ooooh, so the new avatars that we bring in here could be picked by anyone else? I didn't know that they became available to everyone.

The one I have is not mine, of course, but I use it because it looks like me. So I'd feel strange if someone else used it, though I suppose if they did there wouldn't be much I could do about it. Just like I picked it up off the Web, I couldn't (and wouldn't) prevent other people from doing the same.

My avatar is my own picture and I would be very angry if someone else used it. CK put up another avatar on May 8, one of his own design, and Aramis11 co-opted it immediately. That is not a mistake, that is willfullness. Is it any wonder CK is angry?

The avatars serve not only for self-identification, but for identification of self to others. It is confusing when someone uses an avatar associated with someone else.

As might be expected, Cap picked a good one; so it is unremarkable that Aramis11 adopt it. But when it was suggested that this was poor etiquette, he stubbornly refused to stop. Understanding, probably, that Cap's replacement Avatar was aimed at him, in another burst of poor form he, his rebuttal consisted of taking that one, also. That is twice rude, and once 'theft.'

While all this may evidence a hitherto unsuspected sense of humor lurking beneath Aramis11's generally unfriendly tone, it amounts to poor etiquette. And while an apology might have been proper and put an end to the controversy, he does seem to have backed off of Cap's Avatars. So I guess once everyone's had their say it would be best to let it go.

Best case scenario remains an apology from Aramis11, which would probably put an end to all this. Here's hoping.

well said, insel.

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Problem is that once you upload your avatar it becomes part of the stock avatar pool with no indication of any sort that it is considered proprietary by the uploader or even, as is mine, copyrighted by the uploader. As far as I know there is no way for any of us with proprietary or copyrighted avatars to so indicate or to place them in an otherwise unavailable pool or to remove them from the stock pool once put there.

That is exactly the case. When signing into this bulletin board, Aramis merely selected from the set that was offered, unaware it could provoke attacks from other posters.

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CK put up another avatar on May 8, one of his own design, and Aramis11 co-opted it immediately. That is not a mistake, that is willfullness.

He deliberately linked to my avatar knowing perfectly well what he was doing. Unless he's really dumb as well as being a thief.

Never seen so many false accusations based on assumptions! Seems like trying to divine motivations as if psychic is what is really dumb. Apology for what? Using the site as it was designed without knowing any of these proprietary claims? All Aramis did was select from a set offered and only ever did so once. And they have apparently all been deleted. Is 'sheesh' a real word?

Why is Aramis speaking of himself in the third person? I have no hidden agenda and am not entering into the avator discussion. Just curious.

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All Aramis did was select from a set offered and only ever did so once.

Aramis, please. I saw Capital Kiwi's avatar in your replies on May 8th. Obviously you selected twice, once in February when you first posted and again on May 8th of this year, not even twelve hours after CK changed it. That willful deed is what you must apologize for.

The pictures for Avatars are not copied over and over again, but merely refered to in the page by URL. Changing that file will change the avatar of any member who chose that image from the common pool.

OK! Zmjezhd has found what happened, but I'd like to offer my services as a professional tech writer to explain for everyone to understand. When Capital Kiwi entered his first avatar, a picture of a kiwi in black and white, that image entered a data base with an association to his member number here. I just went and looked and that number is 1622. When Aramis11 saw it in the stock list he liked it so he used it.

Then, when Capital Kiwi changed to the one he currently uses, his upload deleted the first kiwi picture and changed it to the current picture (the one with almost irrefutable evidence of NZers' complete ineptitude with guns). Sorry, Cap, I had to throw that in. Here in NC when we shoot a sign we get body hits every time; after all the sign ain't movin'. And that automatically changed Aramis's avatar, so to the casual observer it looked as though he had stolen it.

I don't think that's what happened. I think it was a comedy of errors. If you go above to almost any of the avatars and right click on the picture you will see a properties pulldown. Capital Kiwi's now refers to his picture on another web site, so it does not show up in the stock pictures. But I am willing to bet a nickel that at the time this controversy started the new avatar was on the stock avatar listing here.

I agree there is an apology due. The apology appears to be due to Aramis11, not the other way around.

I have said this before and I will say it again. When there is something that you don't like, something that upsets you, something that pisses you off, TAKE IT PRIVATE!!!

There have been a whole bunch of hurt feelings here that could have been avoided by taking it private. I repeat. TAKE IT PRIVATE!!!

Many thanks to both of you for clearing up this mystery. Aramis, please accept my most humble apologies.

Well, if it was the Board software that did it - and I suppose it might have been - I'll certainly apologise unconditionally to Aramis for calling him a thief. The original kiwi picture was one I picked up on the web anyway and is more or less in the public domain, which is why I just moved on and built my own avatar after my original post on the subject.

However, TEd's lucid post still doesn't explain how, for twelve hours or so after I put up my new avatar, Aramis was still showing the original kiwi picture. Then his user name (however it happened) was linked to my new one. If it had happened immediately I might have smelled a software rat. As it was, though, what else was I to think?

I've just looked through the avatar collection and I agree that the kiwi isn't there, but I didn't delete it. I can't. I don't have the privileges to do so. Perhaps Jackie did it by accident. And I know that simply linking to a new avatar doesn't delete the old one, because I linked to the Easter Island statue for a day or so once, and it's still there.

Because he didn't post?

I think it's more that zmjezhd's explanation of what happened just isn't correct.

The url to an avatar is associated with your profile and must be stored as a datum on the database against the individual profile.

It doesn't matter which of the stock avatars you link to, you can link and unlink to an avatar and not affect anyone else. However Aramis' profile picked up my new avatar, it wasn't because of anything I did such as changing MY link.

And as I said in the post above, unlinking from an avatar doesn't delete them and the original kiwi is most certainly gone.

I can accept that Aramis may have not intentionally grabbed my new avatar, but I need a better explanation of what happened than zmjezhd's...

Cap, the experiment is underway. Please see the Apologies to Aramis thread. This thread is now in the over 99 post territory, so can we continue in the other thread?

I think it's more that zmjezhd's explanation of what happened just isn't correct.

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. When a member chooses an image in the profile settings, s/he has two choices: (a) upload the file so that it is stored on the wordsmith.org host, or (b) provide a URL of the file so that it is stored on some other host. Examining where the avatar image is stored took me to a domain called bacchus-marsh.com ... This leads me to believe that anyone who chooses this picture will not only be stealing it, but bandwidth from whomever owns or rents the domain.

(In Firefox or Mozilla, one can test this out (until it is changed) by right-clicking on the picture next to Capital_Kiwi and choosing View Image in the contextual menu. Then note the URL that was loaded in the locator text field under the menu bar.)

No, Capital Kiwi has changed where he had the avatar stored from the awad repository to his own. What you are seeing now is what reality is today. What you cannot see is the fact that Cap had the second avatar stored here, but he went in and moved it.

If you look at an avatar, stored on the board: say, the Padre's. It has a URL of http://wordsmith.org/board/images/avatars/1349.jpg ... It just so happens that his membership / user number is 1349. Anybody who chooses his Paul Scofield photo is just pointing at the same file, and if he changes the picture file, it is stored in the same place, instantly changing for anybody else who may have used it.

[Addendum: Look at an avatar of AnnaStrophic, who has changed her avatar a couple of times. Her woodpecker icon is stored under her user id: 176.]

Well, not quite.

I did upload my new avatar, but when I saw that it was also showing against Aramis' profile I asked Jackie to delete it because I couldn't (which is why I know that users can't delete avatars).

Jackie obliged, and I now link to it on my website (Bacchus Marsh). Certainly when both Aramis and I were linked to my new avatar when it was uploaded to the Board the url was the same, but then it would be, wouldn't it? But the two links (from my profile and from Aramis') are completely separate events, held against our individual profiles. They just happen to point to the same address. That's why zmjezhd's explanation isn't correct. No action on my part could affect Aramis' profile information, including his choice of avatar.

I still don't know, accepting that Aramis didn't deliberately choose my new avatar and link to it, why the link occurred.

Apologies, zmjezhd, you are quite correct. It still doesn't explain why the board continued to show Aramis with the kiwi for half a day afterwards. Surely it doesn't cache images with every page ...

I would have overwritten the original gif with the new one when I uploaded it. (I didn't check the address details so Aramis lost his old avatar and "adopted" mine.)

I do owe Aramis an apology in the instance of the second avatar in that case.

Having this cataclysm sorted out and the apologies are much appreciated. There certainly were unwarranted conclusions reached during all this. Perhaps a suggestion to alter the system to make the images unique to each member could be useful? From this end, only one selection was ever made, and without any sort of malicious intent.