From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Authentication-Results: mx.groups.io; dkim=missing; spf=pass (domain: redhat.com, ip: 209.132.183.28, mailfrom: lersek@redhat.com) Received: from mx1.redhat.com (mx1.redhat.com [209.132.183.28]) by groups.io with SMTP; Tue, 09 Apr 2019 16:22:54 -0700 Received: from smtp.corp.redhat.com (int-mx02.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com [10.5.11.12]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.redhat.com (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 68E22308A946; Tue, 9 Apr 2019 23:22:53 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lacos-laptop-7.usersys.redhat.com (ovpn-120-114.rdu2.redhat.com [10.10.120.114]) by smtp.corp.redhat.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id ECEF2619B5; Tue, 9 Apr 2019 23:22:49 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [edk2-devel] The rumours of Ard Biesheuvel's death have been greatly exaggerated To: ahs3@redhat.com, devel@edk2.groups.io, leif.lindholm@linaro.org Cc: tpilar@solarflare.com References: <20190409154603.w3wwrie2cbxsfjxe@bivouac.eciton.net> <5901a2249a07473389e263df7f473e92@ukex01.SolarFlarecom.com> <682c922b-c6c5-2769-5092-717d0e4b9a89@redhat.com> <20190409180614.buuvv5fashig5ydk@bivouac.eciton.net> From: "Laszlo Ersek" Message-ID: Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2019 01:22:48 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.9.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.79 on 10.5.11.12 X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.5.16 (mx1.redhat.com [10.5.110.41]); Tue, 09 Apr 2019 23:22:53 +0000 (UTC) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On 04/09/19 20:59, Al Stone wrote: > On 04/09/2019 12:06 PM, Leif Lindholm wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 09, 2019 at 07:58:37PM +0200, Laszlo Ersek wrote: >>> On 04/09/19 18:36, Tomas Pilar (tpilar) wrote: >>>> I skimmed the my emails and my eyes registered 'Ard Biesheuvel' and = 'death' and my brain went 'but but but I've seen him just yesterday!'. Ho= pe you are happy. >>> >>> The rumors of Leif Lindholm's reprimand, due to giving edk2-devel >>> subscribers a heart attack, have *not* been exaggerated... >>> >>> Honestly mine skipped a beat. :( >> >> Sorry guys, I thought the "the rumours of my death have been greatly >> exaggerated" was common enough pop culture to be globally >> recognisable. >> >> Clearly it wasn't. >> I apologise and will try to be more careful in future. >> >> / >> Leif >=20 > In Leif's defense, this may be an Americanism, often attributed to Mark= Twain > (aka Samuel Clemens [0]), one of the great American humorists. So, I u= nderstood > him quite clearly and knew precisely what he meant. This is an extreme= ly well > known reference in this part of the English speaking world (I'm in the = US), and > perhaps the UK. >=20 > Just the same, I understand we are not all part of a single culture. A= nd it can > be enormously difficult to see these sorts of references as culturally = specific > when one is fluent in a language. I struggle with it all the time. I'm moderately familiar with the saying, but if you replace "my" with "someone else", then it reads quite differently. Compare: - the rumours of my death |stop reading here| - the rumours of John Doe's death |stop reading here| The first variant is funny even without finishing the sentence; the sentence almost finishes itself. That's because "my death" obviously conflicts with "I'm writing this message", so we start laughing. OTOH, the second variant induces anguish between the word "death" and the rest of the sentence, because the conflict that makes the first variant funny is not there. The sentence could technically be finished very differently from "have been greatly exaggerated". Important: I'm not posting this to make Leif feel worse, just trying to explain why we can't blame this *entirely* on cultural differences. I might recognize a pattern from a different culture and share the laugh, but here the pain set in before I was done recognizing the pattern. I do agree it remains *mostly* cultural though, as I reckon most native English speakers recognize the pattern as soon as they read just "The rumours of", and start smiling right there, from memory. ... And, yes, I've just butchered the quip itself, by over-analyzing it. Sorry about that. :) Thanks Laszlo >=20 > My only puzzlement was "those responsible have been sacked." I thought= it was a > reference to the opening credits of "Monty Python's Holy Grail" and sta= rted > thinking about taking a holiday in Sweden and seeing the "w=C3=B8nd=C3=AB= rful teleph=C3=B8ne > system And m=C3=A4ni interesting furry animals" [1] .... which then mad= e me think > that maybe Ard's hair could be considered a small furry animal (sorry, = Ard :), > at which point I decided I was really not quite awake yet and definitel= y needed > more coffee. This has been remedied. >=20 > For introducing a little surrealism into my morning, I thank you, Leif.= I would > probably have written the exact same thing under the circumstances; now= I know > to watch out for that quote, too. Thanks to all for pointing that out. >=20 > I now return you to your current EDK2 topic... >=20 >=20 >=20 > [0] http://www.twainquotes.com/Death.html > [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071853/crazycredits >=20 >>> >>> Laszlo >>> >>>> -----Original Message----- >>>> From: devel@edk2.groups.io On Behalf Of Leif = Lindholm >>>> Sent: 09 April 2019 08:46 >>>> To: devel@edk2.groups.io >>>> Subject: [edk2-devel] The rumours of Ard Biesheuvel's death have bee= n greatly exaggerated >>>> >>>> Anyone sending email to Ard Biesheuvel today will have been met by a= notification saying he no longer works at Linaro. >>>> >>>> Those responsible have not been sacked, but his account is in the pr= ocess of being restored :) >>>> >>>> / >>>> Leif >=20 >=20