[OT] Inquiring Minds want to know WAS: Re: Envy or Store or what?

Richard A. O'Keefe squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org
Thu Oct 31 01:49:53 UTC 2002


	It has sort of always been a habit to put it in there. The point of it
	is that since a PS appears below the signing this, as Patrik already
	explained, clarifies that the PS was written by the same person.
	
Postscripts are, as a rule, written by the same person who wrote the rest
of the letter/message.  Why call out the (overwhelmingly) commonest case
for special treatment?  It is postscripts written by someone _else_ that
need to be flagged.  In printed material, it is customary to indicate
material written by someone else by putting their role [Ed] or their
initials [D.S., for example] there; so to me, putting "DS" at the end
of a postscript could only mean that the postscript was written by someone
with initials "DS" who HADN'T written the body of the message.

In a message written in English, abbreviations other than English or
Latin ones are bound to confuse people rather than "clarify" anything.

	Another thing - what kind of mailinglist greetings do you use?

As a native speaker of English, I find "greetings" out of place in
messages sent to mailing lists.  If one _must_ have such a thing,
what's wrong with "Dear readers" or "Dear Squeakers"?

	Dan uses the "Hi folks!" greeting which is neutral in gender etc.

It is perhaps a little too informal and culture-bound.
Imagine a stranger coming up to you and saying "Hey, cuzzie!".

	I often like to write "Hi guys!"  but somehow (even if it isn't
	gender specific in speech nowadays - I have been told) in
	writing it does seem to imply males to me.  Or does it?  Would
	it be "kosher" to use that?

"guys" may be gender-neutral, but "guy" is not.  Guy is a man's name.
In fact, in a few days' time we here will be celebrating the most famous
Guy of all time, although perhaps the Americans will criticise us for
remembering a terrorist.

However, the word "guy" has some rather unfortunate connotations.

1. A "guy" is "a rope, chain, rod, or wire attached to something
   as a brace or guide", hence "to guy something" is "to steady,
   or reinforce with a guy".

  "Hi, ropes"?

2. A "guy" is an effigy displayed and burned as part of November 5th
   celebrations.

  "Hi, soon-to-be-burned effigies"?

3. To "guy" someone is "to make fun of" or "ridicule" them.
   Hence a "guy" is the butt of ridicule.

  "Hi, dumbos"?

4. A "guy" can be "a person of grotesque appearance".
   It's not clear to me that this is really different from sense 3.

  "Hi, freaks"?

5. A "guy" can be "a man or boy (an informal use)".

6. "In informal *American* English, you can address a group of
   people as guys or you guys, whether they are male or female."

7. A "fall guy" can be the victim of a deception or a scapegoat;
   typically made a scapegoat by means of a deception.

  "Hi, dupes"?

	As a homebrewed variant I have been using "Hi all!"  but it
	limps a bit (might be a Swedish saying).  :-)

While pointless, it is at least inoffensive.

	After checking around it also seems that most people think it should be
	"PPS" as in "post post scriptum". But somewhere I saw that it could mean
	"post scriptum secundum". He.
	
www.webster.com
	"Etymology: New Latin 'post postscriptum'.
	 An additional postscript."
	
Of course, in e-mail we are at liberty to fold our postscripts back into the
body of the text without tearing up any pages or re-penning anything...




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