Re: MICROSOFT HIRED THESE PEOPLE TO SABOTAGE OPEN SOURCE
On Tue, April 9, 2013 6:02 am, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
> On Tue, 2013-04-09 at 08:28 -0400, Carl Fink wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 09, 2013 at 02:23:11PM +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>> > That's a description of the term "banana republic", but colloquial I
>> use
>> > it for other countries with similar issues too. In Germany most people
>> > won't call Islamic nations that kill their own and other people
>> "banana
>> > republic". When I call those nations "banana republics" the term I use
>> > is much more harmless, then the terms that are usually used to
>> describe
>> > such countries.
>>
>> Ralf, that's not what "banana republic" means. It refers to ... well,
>> read
>> the Wiki article. You can't just redefine the word because you wish it
>> meant
>> something else. "Corruption-riddled states ruled by strongmen" are just
>> that, not "banana republics".
>
> We could go more and more off-topic about how semantics of words differs
> by colloquial language and even how it differs for scientific and
> philosophical terms. The original email fits to the behaviour of "banana
> republic" and of "Corruption-riddled states ruled by strongmen", the
> context should have made clear what I meant. More important than
> semantics of the individual term is the context of the words. If
> somebody completely uneducated does use words in a completely wrong way,
> the context still could make clear what he wants to say.
>
> "civilized" is also a very vague term ;),
The Oxford University Press defines "civilise" as "bring (a place or
people) to a stage of social development considered to be more advanced",
which basically means that an Aboriginal Australian that successfully
exists in the middle of the Simpson Desert is more civilised than an upper
class Englishman dumped down into the same environment, who will die
within three days.
> but I also wrote about
> "witch-hunting" ... a witch isn't male, so also a wrong term?
No, there are male witches, also.
Why are you trying to turn Debian into a `banana republic'?
Do you work secretly for Microsoft?
Kind regards,
Weaver
--
"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government."
-- Thomas Paine
Registered Linux User: 554515
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