Re: Who hasn't been badly flamed?

[Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please at cygwin dot com>]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2005 at 09:16:22PM -0500, Gary R. Van Sickle wrote:
> From: Christopher Faylor                                                                                                          
> On Tue, Sep 06, 2005 at 11:36:19PM -0500, Gary R. Van Sickle wrote:                                                               
> >[snip]                                                                                                                           
>>>It is funny sometimes what people consider to be a "flame". Sometimes
>>>people do rude or inconsiderate things which, while lacking any
>>>vituperative language can, nonetheless serve as fodder for an aggrieved
>>>reaction.  The original mailer can fall back on "I didn't say anything"
>>>but, in reality, they are just trolls.  I think I'll take a good flame
>>>over a troll any day.
>>
>>Hookay, let's just save this one up for future use, shall we?  ;-)
>
>Huh?  Are you taking something in the above personally?
>
>No Chris, you've misunderstood my comment.  I know a guy who does
>exactly what you describe on a periodic basis[1].  Sometimes it sounds
>like he doesn't even realize he does it, though I'm pretty sure he
>does.  At any rate, by "save this one up for future use", I simply
>meant that, should the opportunity present itself, showing him your
>exposition may be instructive and/or informative to him.

Ah.  So, I still didn't have this quite right.

After my coffee, I had thought that you were implying that you were
going to remind me of my preference for "flaming over trolling" the next
time you indulged in a flame.  I thought you might have been poking a
little bit of fun at yourself rather than (my original impression)
taking something I said personally.  I apologized because I thought you
were doing something sort of self-deprecating and I'd initially missed
it.  Thanks for setting me straight and apologies for still getting it
wrong.  I haven't been getting much sleep lately and it is beginning to
show.

You have a good idea there.  I think I'll hold onto my apology for
similar reasons.  The next time I come up against someone who refuses to
admit any fault I can use my message as an example of how someone who
thinks they made a mistake can honestly apologize for it rather than
trying to cover up or ignore it.

>[1] I think; I still don't know what "vituperative" means.  I gotta buy
>myself a dictionary one of these days.

I use dictionary.reference.com, myself.  I even checked that I was using
vituperative the way I meant to when I used the above.

Actually, now that I think of it, I keep meaning to switch to
en.wiktionary.org.

References below.

I'm glad that we're finally starting to get along, btw.  I do think
highly of your technical ability and, as you know, I've always
appreciated your sense of humor.

cgf

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vituperative
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=vituperative

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=erudite
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/erudite