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A comment on Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off. Parent comment

Re:Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off by jlawson on Sunday September 16, 2018 @11:17PM (#18002911)
Heinlein wrote "honorifics and formal politeness". I interpret this as things like saying "please", "thank you", and other straightforward ritualistic decorative words - not as actually changing what you're actually saying to avoid hurting feelings.

There's a big difference between reformatting the message and changing the message.

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Re:Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off by int_19h on Monday September 17, 2018 @12:45AM (#18003263)
What's described in the comment I responded to is exactly "reformatting the message" - you still communicate the same thing, ultimately, just in a way that allows the person on the receiving end to save face.
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Re:Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off by skriticos2 on Monday September 17, 2018 @09:04AM (#18005516)
This reminds me of employee work reviews in Germany when they leave, that are mandated by law to be positive (not kidding).

The result is that it spawned a new code language for HR people (there are dictionaries) that "translate" the review.

Everybody is polite..

For instance the level of praise in with the various points indicates a scoring.

Here are a few examples:

He showed understanding for his work. -> He did not do anything.

He did all the work with great diligence and interest. -> Eager, but not very efficient.

He tried to do his job justice. -> The will was there, more unfortunately not.

He has used his skills. -> He did what he could. That was not much.

Here is a Google Translated page about it: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

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Re:Linus Torvalds apologizes for his behavior, takes time off by mmirate on Monday September 17, 2018 @11:25PM (#18012238)
And of course, things like this only erode language semantics over time by making more and more words and phrases seem sarcastic; we have "/s" but there is no reliable marker of non-sarcasm (cf Poe's Law).
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