Russell, I should place in my message as much :-) faces as you had placed "sorry" word in yours. Don't monopolize the word, please. Share it with Olin, if possible. Without this word he looks like being absolutely sure of his rightfulness unbending communist leader Fidel Castro for example. :-) Should I compare him with other English speaking guy Hamlet with his feeble "to be; or not to be". :-) Mike. :-) --------------------------- PS: I wish I had written skills in Russian, as excellent as you have in English. Olin Lathrop wrote: > Russell McMahon wrote: oo But you have oo in fact helped make the point that I was trying to make - that is, oo when dealing with people for whom English is NOT their first oo language. what may SEEM like laziness or rudeness CAN be oo mainly or completely a result of their lack of grasp of English. oo We want to encourage such people - not chase them away. > Only to a point. This is an *English* speaking list. Nobody has to post > here. We hold no monopoly on email lists talking about PICs or any other > subject. If someone doesn't like the fact that this is an English speaking > list, they can go start their own list in whatever language they like. > I'm not trying to be elitist, merely selfishly looking out for my own time > and comfort. I can deal with a little broken English, but don't want to > (and won't) waste a lot of time second guessing what might really really be > meant by a post. If someone is asking me for a favor, it's their job to > communicate with me the way I ask. If they don't like it, oh well. I've > got plenty of other things to do. > > Also, I don't think broken English is the barrier you make it out to be. > For example see posts from Vasily. He obviously struggles with English, but > in the end you can usually get the general idea of what he is trying to say. > He also comes accross quite clearly as a nice guy who is trying to help > rather than an arrogant ingrate who wants someone else to do all the work > for him. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.