[Foundation-l] Movement roles letter, Feb 2012

[Milos Rancic]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 17:52, Béria Lima <berialima at gmail.com> wrote:
> No I will not apologize for act according with my culture.
>
> If Mister de Vreede has a problem with people from different cultures he
> shouldn't be part of a international movement.
>
> (And besides if someone would complain about misspelling, the Russians,
> Arabs, Japanese and Indians should be the ones since no one here can even
> write their real names in the original languages)

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.