Also, there are other employees around who are proud of their use of quotation marks and specifically expect that they be complimented on them.
Sure. But after a couple times I compliment on your punctuation and you don’t take it well, I should get the hint and realize that you aren’t one of those people. (And whether you do like to be complimented on punctuation by people with smaller noses¹ than mine is irrelevant; if you don’t like it when I do it, I should stop it, at least until I can afford a rhinoplasty.)
Some of them even leave reports on their desks with pages of words prominently displayed just so that people will compliment them on their punctuation.
I was about to go ‘but there’s a large difference between writing in a formal standard grammatically correct way and writing in a way that fishes for compliments!’, then I remembered that that’s probably much less the case in the America than where I am (see e.g. [1], [2]; by comparison where I am you can just wear canvas sneakers or tennis shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt or a sweater, and that’s not necessarily considered sexy but not necessarily slovenly either, regardless of your gender), so never mind.
“Native speakers” would be a less silly allegory, BTW.
And whether you do like to be complimented on punctuation by people with smaller noses than mine is irrelevant; if you don’t like it when I do it, I should stop it,
Using your analogy of native speakers, people want to be complimented on their punctuation by native speakers only. When complimented by anyone who doesn’t speak well enough, they lie and say “I don’t like it because you’re not complimenting me on the quality of my work”, when they’re really just using it as a cover for an implied insult of “I hate people with your accent”. This proceeds to the point where everyone knows that the former complaint is just an excuse for the latter.
Then you come along, and you really want to be complimented on the quality of your work. You’re going to be mistaken for those other guys quite a bit.
Doesn’t change my point. If you are predictably annoyed when I compliment on your punctuation and I know it, I’d better stop it if I don’t want to be a dick, regardless of why it annoys you.
I don’t believe that. For instance, if you are white, I am not, and you are offended by compliments because you are offended whenever a non-white person talks to you or even sit next to you, it’s not me that’s being a dick by offending you, it’s you who’s being one by being offended by things that you have no right to be offended by.
That’s essentially what’s going on here—some people who are offended are offended for a reason that doesn’t deserve to be respected (they dont like someone’s accent/they don’t want to be complimented by someone low status), and they lie and pretend they are offended for a reason that does deserve to be respected (they don’t want shallow compliments).
Not wanting to be complimented for being sexy by unsexy people doesn’t deserve to be respected? WTF? Would you be okay with it if someone you’re not only not attracted to in the slightest but perhaps even repulsed by said something to the effect that they would like to bang you (even though not with those words)?
I might want to restrict such things to being said only by someone who I’m in a relationship with, but that’s different from restricting such things to only being said by all beautiful people.
This proceeds to the point where everyone knows that the former complaint is just an excuse for the latter.
Then it’s not a lie. That’s not how natural languages work. If everybody knows that when people say X they mean Y, then X means Y, regardless of etymology. There’s no stone tablet in the sky that specifies what X actually means regardless of when people actually say X and when they don’t. (Or would you say that someone saying “it’s raining cats and dogs” in absence of domestic carnivorans falling down from clouds is lying?)
And if of the possible ways of wording a complaint someone chooses the one least likely to hurt my feelings, why should I hold it against them, rather than being grateful for that?
If everybody knows that when people say X they mean Y, then X means Y, regardless of etymology.
Hold on. I’m not arguing that X doesn’t mean Y. I’m arguing that X does mean Y, and that explains why people treat Y as X. (X=I don’t want to be complimented by ugly/low status people, Y=I don’t want to be complimented based on superficial attributes, by anyone).
Sure. But after a couple times I compliment on your punctuation and you don’t take it well, I should get the hint and realize that you aren’t one of those people. (And whether you do like to be complimented on punctuation by people with smaller noses¹ than mine is irrelevant; if you don’t like it when I do it, I should stop it, at least until I can afford a rhinoplasty.)
I was about to go ‘but there’s a large difference between writing in a formal standard grammatically correct way and writing in a way that fishes for compliments!’, then I remembered that that’s probably much less the case in the America than where I am (see e.g. [1], [2]; by comparison where I am you can just wear canvas sneakers or tennis shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt or a sweater, and that’s not necessarily considered sexy but not necessarily slovenly either, regardless of your gender), so never mind.
“Native speakers” would be a less silly allegory, BTW.
Using your analogy of native speakers, people want to be complimented on their punctuation by native speakers only. When complimented by anyone who doesn’t speak well enough, they lie and say “I don’t like it because you’re not complimenting me on the quality of my work”, when they’re really just using it as a cover for an implied insult of “I hate people with your accent”. This proceeds to the point where everyone knows that the former complaint is just an excuse for the latter.
Then you come along, and you really want to be complimented on the quality of your work. You’re going to be mistaken for those other guys quite a bit.
Doesn’t change my point. If you are predictably annoyed when I compliment on your punctuation and I know it, I’d better stop it if I don’t want to be a dick, regardless of why it annoys you.
I don’t believe that. For instance, if you are white, I am not, and you are offended by compliments because you are offended whenever a non-white person talks to you or even sit next to you, it’s not me that’s being a dick by offending you, it’s you who’s being one by being offended by things that you have no right to be offended by.
That’s essentially what’s going on here—some people who are offended are offended for a reason that doesn’t deserve to be respected (they dont like someone’s accent/they don’t want to be complimented by someone low status), and they lie and pretend they are offended for a reason that does deserve to be respected (they don’t want shallow compliments).
Not wanting to be complimented for being sexy by unsexy people doesn’t deserve to be respected? WTF? Would you be okay with it if someone you’re not only not attracted to in the slightest but perhaps even repulsed by said something to the effect that they would like to bang you (even though not with those words)?
I might want to restrict such things to being said only by someone who I’m in a relationship with, but that’s different from restricting such things to only being said by all beautiful people.
Then it’s not a lie. That’s not how natural languages work. If everybody knows that when people say X they mean Y, then X means Y, regardless of etymology. There’s no stone tablet in the sky that specifies what X actually means regardless of when people actually say X and when they don’t. (Or would you say that someone saying “it’s raining cats and dogs” in absence of domestic carnivorans falling down from clouds is lying?)
And if of the possible ways of wording a complaint someone chooses the one least likely to hurt my feelings, why should I hold it against them, rather than being grateful for that?
Hold on. I’m not arguing that X doesn’t mean Y. I’m arguing that X does mean Y, and that explains why people treat Y as X. (X=I don’t want to be complimented by ugly/low status people, Y=I don’t want to be complimented based on superficial attributes, by anyone).
Tapping out.