Which, I thought, was mostly my point too... man, people can violently agree sometimes ... ;-) My particular point is not directed at the 'general' and 'most people' cases... most people will not take offense if you are not a native English speaker and yet speak broken English regardless, whereas most people will take offense if you call them an idiot (in any language). I am directing my point to the former 'trivial' case, not the latter 'universal' case. All I was trying to say is that some people are just plain irritable, and 'trivial' things set them off. Like, who gives a toss about typo's or poor grammer, or top-posting vs. bottom posting, or 'dumb questions', or some such.... ? And, if a person is so inclined to take offense at such things even though clearly not directed at them, then it is inevitable that they will find 'annoyance' in all sorts of minor misdemeanors. And the ulcer will just be one of the less-trivial ones. I mean, honestly, the subject line is "Pedantic nitpicking about English usage". The best value I can get from a thread like this is to laugh at the miserable souls who take this sort of thing so seriously. Perhaps I can also share my amusement in such a way that people realize that there are more important things in life, like learning the real meaning of the word "Equivocation". I never figured that one out.... till now. There is a certain amount of entertainment value ... Oh, I see you are nit-picking my post in another mail. I do like the fact you know the right words for concepts.... hang on, are you trying to befuddle me with eloquence....? Sort of does not work with me. I have a friend who is similarly vivacious with language, and I've learned long ago that it can just be a crutch to avoid inspection of the actual content value of the duscussion, and it's value is purely evanescent (with me at least). Regardless, I do enjoy your mastery of language. It's worth trolling this just to get a response.... Oooh... I remember the word.... grandiloquence. That's a cool one. Rolf On 14/07/2010 4:24 PM, RussellMc wrote: > My point was that if you act in a manner that near universal internet > and human nature based experience shows that most people would > consider rude then most people will consider it rude. The actual or > claimed intentions of the poster will make little difference to the > perception - -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist