Beria, You're behavior is simply unacceptable. Are you going to apologize to Jan-Bart or simply continue with your baseless justifications on why you are calling him this and not that? Abbas.

No one? Really? My name is an Arabic name and even though I'm not an Arab, I can write Arabic names perfectly well. Your assumption is merely stereotypical. --Abbas.

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 17:52, Béria Lima <berialima(a)gmail.com> wrote: While I sympathize with your position (if not derogatory, I think that any name is acceptable while it denominates the person clearly), you should accept it as-is. (At the other side, I don't think that cultural misunderstandings should be fixed by apologizing. Here. Beria simply doesn't understand where the problem is.) I wouldn't comment Jan-Bart's wish, but I have comparable position toward usage of particular words: If email in my inbox begins with "Dear Milos" (especially in Serbian) by a person not so close to me, I would treat it as over-formal tone. (One of my friends sends such emails to trash automatically.) I would automatically have negative attitude toward that person. There are a couple of other wrong beginnings of email if someone wants my [positive] attention. "Dear Sir" (literally in Serbian "Respected Mister") is worse than "Dear Milos", for example. But, particular rule has different meaning in particular circumstances. For example, if one French or American starts email with "Dear Milos", I would treat it as their cultural characteristic and I wouldn't have such negative attitude as if I heard it from one Serbian. If I get it from you, Beria, I would ask you if everything is OK with you. If I get a genuine email from one person from Sub-Saharan Africa email with "Dear Sir", I wouldn't complain about it, as I would assume that it's his or her best attempt to be polite. If I get it from you, I would think that your email account has been hijacked by spammers. Note that I don't care a lot about words and that I wouldn't complain, but just make my position toward the person which sent email to me. Some people, culturally or personally, have stronger emotions toward naming conventions. Which means that the safest method for using particular words in communication with someone is to ask that person.

Am I the one person feeling that the way this debate is going in a stupid direction that is totally irrelevant to the scope of this list ? I thought we were to discuss " Movement roles letter, Feb 2012 ". Just a gentle reminder ! :P Regards Tinu Cherian On Sat, Feb 18, 2012 at 2:56 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru>wrote;wrote:

On 18 February 2012 14:48, CherianTinu Abraham <tinucherian(a)gmail.com> wrote: I'm quite enjoying this thread... it makes a nice change from going round in circles as we have been doing for the last month or two.