Date: Sat, 22 Oct 2005 00:50:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: dicconf <dicconf at radix.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Beyond a Great Con...
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

On Fri, 21 Oct 2005, Elspeth Kovar wrote:

> At 05:32 PM 10/21/2005, dicconf wrote:
>
>>> "Some people have a genius for the game
>>> Of pouring oil upon the troubled flame"
>>>
>>> was absolutely a snarky remark,
>>
>> Yes.
>
> Which response surprised me; I'd expected a rationalization.  Thank you
> very much for your honesty.

And I didn't expect from you the dishonesty of deleting the next lines:

>>>and uncalled for.
>>
>>No.  As Wellington said, nothing is worse than impunity.
>
> <snip>
>
>> And that ends my discussion with you.  Let us return to our _moutons_.
>
> My French is rather shabby these days, being mainly used with the help of a
> dictionary for reading poetry.
[snip]
> Without pulling out the by ragged dictionary I take it to mean "return to
> our sheep."  Which invokes a lovely and peaceful image of pastures rather
> than "let us tend to our own sheep", which might be what you meant.
>
> Let's all go with the peaceful.

Well, that is sort of the idea.  It's from a story by Rabelais in which a
farmer sues a neighbor for stealing his sheep, but when the case comes to
court he starts kicking up a fuss over a different issue, so the judge has
to keep saying "revenons nous moutons" ("let's get back to our sheep"),
which became a catchphrase for "let's get back to the subject" -- which,
IIRC, was how to minimize bad feeling and tension in WSFA, not whether
somebody should be blamed for doing his little bit to maximize it.

-- Dick Eney