"Language Pirates" and "Make Me Cries"

I am thinking of an experience I had today in real life. I was misunderstood by a secretary 'coz she didnt realize I was apologizing to her. She thought I was verbally attacking her. She called me a pirate and bawled Don't make me cry!!! Now granted, she must be an idiot because I really was apologizing. I thought my language was very much toned to that type of apology. You know, jollying her along and trying to be a bit AbFab about it all. I am English so my approach is often straightforward, cheeky and may even be "rude" by other society's standards . I currently live in a society where the motto seems to be "if you cant say anything nice dont say anything at all" Sooo, have YOU (because of culture, language issues, upbringing etc) ever been misunderstood to your detriment when YOU are in sl?
How did you apologize?
Send flowers? (I am gonna send this woman some flowers)
Could many ARs be the result of a purely unintentional comment or attitude?

I'd advise a nice card instead. Coming from one of those "if you have nothing nice to say then don't say anything" cultures (Minneapolis - full of tactiturn Germans and phlegmatic Swedes), flowers imposes a recipricating social burden on the recipient. You're spending real coin on the apology, and its something she'd be obligated to place on her desk and then have to deal with people asking about it. A card would show you're sincere, and is cheap enough and small enough that she doesn't have to respond with anything other than a smile and a "forget about it" - social debt paid in full.

In these cultures communication can be very subtle, and there's a negotiation of face and honor and an expectation of either "fitting in" or being the harmless outsider - you just have to learn.

Societies build landmines about them, rituals and practices that are unknown or confusing to the outsider.

Societies recognize outsiders by those who don't fit in. They identify dissidents by those who refuse to fit in. It's a game, it's a dance, it's serious, it's work.

Happens to me all the time. The older I get the less patience I have with "Political Correctness" and softening my words.

I am a blunt person. I dont play games. I mean what I say and say what I mean to the best of my ability. That does not mean I am deliberately rude or offensive but social attitudes are different from place to place and somewhere along the line I stopped worrying about it.

It is genuinely good to hear I am not alone and teh advicesounds right on track.

I only have that problem on message boards.

In defusing situations it's good to just say your sorry, and be quiet. It's usually better to let things slide, or let them think they have won, then get a fist in the teeth.

I ride the bus, it goes from a poor largely black neighborhood and through the county seat (where the county court house is) winding it's way through affluent neighborhoods. I wear boots, and one morning my boot was untied so I put it up on the lip of the seat across the isle to tie it. The seats are doubles and this black guy was sitting on the window side... he goes almost total ape-shit on me about how disrespectful this is. He's not using the same manor of speech I'm using, so I already know we are going to have problems communicating, to make matters worse he's barely keeping a handle on himself. So here I'm thinking, how do I defuse this situation, I'm white, he's black, he's got issues, I do not want to get in a fight on the bus. I didn't want to delve to deep into that vernacular and be seen as patronizing but at the same time I wasn't getting my point across. I apologized, which wasn't enough. I ended up lying, that I saw his point of view and that it was the only valid one. I didn't have a chance in hell of defusing the situation and if it came to a fight I knew I didn't have a chance at winning, I don't work out, I work on computers. He was still seething which is when he decided to get up and moved to the front of the bus. It hadn't occurred to me to move.

1) Apologize
2) Consed
3) Get away

so many different people knowing so many different languages and then trying to speak to each other in English.
with people that perfectly speak english there are enough misunderstandings with text..
now add in the factor of trying to communicate with people that have it as one of the many languages they may know and the odds go up in misunderstandings..

i try to be as careful as i can when speaking with people in sl and try to keep as much slang out of it as i can unless it is people i know well enough that they would understand any slang i may throw in..
still we have misunderstandings..most can be fixed ..

most time it's the ones that don't let you know you've said something to them in one way but meant it as another and quietly become upset that cause bad feelings .because you don't get the chance to make it right until the grape vine brings it back around to you in a much wilder version lol

Wow, Jig. We have a perception in the US of English people being reserved. I guess we're wrong - or there are all types, same as anywhere else.

In SL about the worst misunderstanding (that I am aware of) comes from chat lag. I was at a venue last night and remember saying something I thought was self effacing intended to be a little humorous, but it appeared on screen right after someone else said something it seems to eprtain to. Made it look like I was insulting them. I can't remember the exact words now.

Fortunately people seem to understand about chat lag.

WTF are YOU doing apologising because SHE was stupid? If everybody started to do this the dumb guys would rule the earth, and it's bad enough the USA electing leaders with IQs around room temperature.

And in answer to your question, yes, this sort of thing happens to me *all* the time. I continually get criticised for being "mean" because I give honest answers when people ask me questions. I used to be a consultant and that was how I made my money. Funnily enough, it used to annoy quite a lot of clients because they didn't like me being right and getting things done. Should *I* have told them things they wanted to hear rather than tell them how they could solve their problems?

Unless you point out to others when they are wrong then they will continue to *be* wrong. Unless you explain when they have misunderstood they will continue in ignorance. Unless you do something to deter behaviour they will continue to exhibit that behaviour. Of course, you can argue that there are value judgments involved, but do you want a philosophical argument every time somebody swears? (Oh, that's right, most of you do!)

OK, there are different ways of communicating. "You are sooo dumb" is probably going to be less effective than "The possessive form of "it" is "its" not "it's", but don't worry too much; people will probably still understand you even if they think you are lazy or undereducated". But pretending that it doesn't matter will eventually mean that it *doesn't* matter.

Pep (If you do insist on sending flowers then you should accompany it with a note to explain exactly why you are doing so)

PS "Pirate"?

Yeah Pirate. Dont honestly know what happened but feel calmer today about whole thing. Anyway, life (ral or otherwise) is way too short to waste in disputes. Thanks for insights. But keep them coming. I suspect that sl is full of our "types" who move and shake rather than quiver and blodge.