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Many a slip betwixt cup and lip
[ 7 minute read ]
How easy it is to inadvertently cancel someone on an open forum, or create a division.
Simply joking that someone who tends to post quite lengthy comments owes the reader some time back for wasting their time is clearly drawing a line. All those who agree that the posts are long-winded stand here with me; all those who think there is enough value in the post to warrant spending time wading through the words stand over there with the person who wrote the post. Clearly though, I have coloured the distinction by including 'wading through the words'. This is intentional framing.
'Many a slip betwixt (between) cup and lip' has never been more poignant than this morning. Someone made a comedic comment on how much more expensive the words in one fiction book are than in another fiction book. The comment included simple maths in the form of the cost of the books divided by the number of words in each book, which gave a monetary value to each word. There was more simple maths in the form of the cost of each book divided by the estimated time it would take to read each book, based on the number of words. A guess was made that the shorter book would cost around £3.66 per hour to read. That post had a conclusion that noted that the reader should read this shorter and more expensive book really slowly to save money (by taking a long time to read the book the cost to the reader for each hour would be reduced). It is, of course, deliberately silly and was, no doubt a reflection of the comedy in one of the fiction books.
A reply was made to that post, which caused me considerable displeasure; not because the reply was divisive, but because of the content of the reply married up to the time it was posted (after 10pm) made me conscious that there could be a misunderstanding that resulted in someone misrepresenting themself. Why would the time be relevant to me? As part of our studies we should all be taking into account all the information that is provided; for Arts and Humanities this might include looking at the frame holding a painting, or comparing one sentence or musical phrase with a preceding sentence or musical phrase, and in Literature, the context in which information is given.
I recently had the misfortune to find myself in a situation in which someone made a comment that ultimately caused me to react quite strongly, ruthlessly and divisively. It also caused me to revise what I was about to say.
Hair Trigger
I had lost my house-keys through a hole in my back pocket; I dress like a beach bum, a drifter. Someone found them and handed them into the local pub. On discovering that the person was still in the pub I left £10 GBP behind the bar thinking it was a single person who could get themselves a drink. It transpired that the person was in a group in the garden so I thought it pertinent to thank them in person and advise them that there is £10 behind the bar, waiting to be spent. I recognised them to be my neighbours, who live on the same road as I do. Here is where it went wrong:
'Here is something you might find interesting...' I announced.
'Oh, here we go!' the woman who found the keys and handed them in disparagingly remarked.
She doesn't know me at all and could have no idea on what I was about to say. She also seemed to forget that I had helped to get the property directly next door to them occupied by a social housing tenant after she and her husband had complained to me that the property had been empty and abandoned by the District Council for years and there was now a rat problem.
In response to her rolling eyes, I maliciously switched to accessing the undercurrent of my understanding of what had actually transpired when I lost my keys. This meant that I focused on why she did not simply call me back to let me know I had dropped my keys. It is a long story, but it seems she saw the keys fall through the hole in my outside back pocket of my shorts. 'I didn't hear them fall' to me means they fell close enough to her that she noticed the lack of sound from the impact on the road, so she knew whose keys they belonged to because she saw them fall. As I say, it is a long story and things don't completely add up in the sequence of events.
'A while ago,' I said to the group, 'Greek men would wear a black arm-band for a year if his donkey died and wear a black arm-band for a month if his wife died.' I left it at that, without giving any explanation or opinion. Thousands of years ago, a Greek farmer would have been unlikely to be able to get a wife without first having a donkey. Let's visit him:
'I love you; marry me. I have an olive farm and you will only need to toil and carry heavy loads for ten or twenty years before I can get a beast of burden to replace you.'
And it is right there that one significant point is made. He doesn't have a donkey and the donkey used to replace the woman has more value in being able to do the job more efficiently than a woman. But that sentence is divisive because many people might say the woman is valuable to him simply because she is a woman. But then, if she does nothing and is only there to be looked at and loved, he could save money by sending her away and buying a painting. Harsh and cold, isn't it? But what do you do if you are a subsistence farmer, farming only to survive from what you can grow; No prospects to attract a woman.
'I would live my life barefoot if I can only live it with you!' Oh, you handsome man!
I think the truth is that without a donkey a Greek man had no hope of attracting a woman to marry him. If the donkey was instead a ladder and the man's goal was to escape from a hole and gain freedom in a wider world; the ladder might warrant a special place in the man's heart. Yet, because all free men have freedom it is often not celebrated as much as it could be.
If the ancient Greek man's wife dies and he still has a donkey he can still survive. However, if the donkey dies and his wife lives, they are destined, as subsistence farmers, to die of starvation in each other's loving arms. So, essentially, the concept is really about how much the ancient farmer wants to live. A donkey helps him to live and a wife helps him to be happy to live, even if she contributes to help him live, she will not compete with a donkey as a beast of burden or its strength. In the modern world we might find brute force to be less desirable than encouragement. A thousand or two thousand years ago, it may have mattered quite a bit.
That is all supposition and opinion, and had I said it to the group in the pub garden it would have confused the two women in the group as much as it confused the two men in the group, one of which in trying to save me, blurted, 'I like donkeys!'
Oh dear! Perhaps you might have proclaimed, while your wife is present, 'I like women!'
It is so easy to make mistakes. My deliberate comment about how Greek men used to visibly show their mourning for a donkey over a longer period than for a wife does not necessarily mean that they actually did mourn its loss more than they would mourn their wife. If the donkey was a gift or part of a dowry, it may have been considered disrespectful to dismiss its death in any other way, such as a short period of wearing a black armband along with the immediate replacement of the dead donkey, the latter of which obviously took place. However, replacing a recently deceased wife inside a year does show disrespect, not only to her but also to her family. But so does, 'I like donkeys!' show approval for mourning donkeys for a long period of time in the context of the story.
In speech, one can get away with far more than one can get away with in writing.
'I like donkeys!'
'What? You like donkeys more then me, your wife?'
'Of course not, dear. I am just saying I like donkeys. I love you. That goes without saying, surely.'
Back to the forum post
Making a joke about someone's long-winded posts in a forum requires a careful response from a potentially aggrieved person; one who understand how division foments. The response must not add to the blueprint of an as yet unrealised position with a banner from which others may fall in line with. The response should not be patronising or derisive because that is divisive in an open forum, let alone rude and insulting. It may not point out the harm that the original comment may cause, because that will draw the original comment into becoming a subject for debate. The owner of the original comment may instinctively double-down as a defence mechanism or become significantly regretful and recognise the ripples they have created in a fragile pond of deliberately focused calm; a pond that some students who cannot swim, must put their toes into as a necessity to ready themselves for university study.
Often, when someone has made a comment on an open forum late in the evening or in the very early hours, readers have to consider the empty wine bottle and the single glass that perhaps sits beside the laptop of the person who posted; but you can never even allude to that. There is no adequate response to a post that has the potential to cancel other people without drawing attention to oneself and making it clear that the intention behind the response is to bring an excavator to a crack that is still a blueprint for a division, if only in that one person disagrees with another. Said openly it will, we tend to overlook, create opposition and everyone loves contrast and belonging to a group, don't they?
I thought perhaps Latin might work. In using a Latin phrase the responder takes a step away from confrontation behind a shroud of rationale, one hopes, but is really based on this:
'quidquid Latine dictum sit altum videtur' (whatever has been said in Latin seems deep)
A short list:
'Nunc est bibendum' simply won't work.(Now is the time for drinking)
'Post factum nullum consilium' is just pointless. (After the fact consultation is useless)
'Alea iacta est' needs explanation.(The die is cast)
However, perhaps this one is fitting:
'semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat' - We are always in the manure, only the depth varies.' attributed to Lord de Ramsey, the House of Lords, 1998
Any mistakes with the Latin are mine.
