On Sun, 20 Jan 2002 21:47:35 +0000, Peter Howard
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>On Sun, 20 Jan 2002, Erminia Passannanti wrote...
>
>>I have no reply to this last provocation.
>
>Erminia,
>
>Please see my other response on this thread, to Alison's reply. (I sent
>this before I saw your latest message quoted above.)
>
>I'm sure Alison wasn't intending to provoke. She was just intending to
>be gently teasing (as you were in your original "be normal" post). The
>fact is, the word "discourteous" means, roughly "rude", and your term
>"un-courteous" sounds as if it means the same as "discourteous". But (as
>I said in my earlier message) I don't think you were meaning in this way
>- I think you were meaning "devoid of flattery" or something like that.
>Am I right?
>
>But hey, if you're going to tease others, you have to be prepared to be
>teased yourself, don't you think?
>
>All the best,
>--
>Peter
>
>http://www.hphoward.demon.co.uk/poetry/
Yes, in fact I am prepared to accept teasing, no problem.
With "Un-corteous", I just meant to say what you just said "devoided of
flattery", which is, striktly speaking, not putting up courtly manners
("corteous" comes from Court/of the Court/therefore manneristic, over
polite, and courteous alludes to overly sugary courtisan mannerisms,
expecially conceived to court women (as in John Donne and the metaphysical
poets, for example). In the ethimology of courteous, there is a negative
hint (cortese, meaning now, also in Italian, "kind", but originally
meaning "assuming the postures imposed by the codes of the Court, so
artifical, unspontaneous). Therefore, in saying "can't you be normal to
each other" I meant "can't you avoid courtly seductive manners."
I was so adumbrated by this last remark about Italians that I went down
two floors to the kitchen and ate half of the huge chocolate cake I have
made (merely to excercise my cooking skills) a couple of hours ago.
How will I spend now - 10.00pm in the night - these 3000 calories taken
in?
I feel I have totally compromised my died.
erminia
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