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Original poster

What happened to the Dear thread?

46 replies

suzywong · 25/02/2006 01:06

I've just woken up and tried to catch up with the Dear thread on don't put your kids' ages or pictures on the interweb, and of course where are you from, Dear? And it's gone

DId it kick off?
What did I miss?
Anyone?

OP posts:
Twiglett · 25/02/2006 12:28

hang on a second .. I thought people were getting insulted by Dear too .. so she obviously has enough of a grasp of the english language to insult people when she wanted to

and she was avoiding answering questions that might have spread some light on it

and if you look at her posts some are totally lucid rather than purposefully strange

I think it was trollish behaviour from many people on that thread .. but I am fairly clear that Dear was one of them too

expatinscotland · 25/02/2006 12:29

that was all so confusing.

Twiglett · 25/02/2006 12:29

"spread some light" ? ... "shone some light" I think

LadyTophamHatt · 25/02/2006 12:29

None of this makes any sense to me....what am I missing.
Can someone give a rough outline....please??

JanH · 25/02/2006 12:30

Moments before the thread got pulled I posted a link to this thread which seems to me to explain a lot about dear's use of English.

(beety's first post on the narnia thread was in response to that )

Twiglett · 25/02/2006 12:30

seemed a bit lavender-esque to me .. if you ignored the syntax and grammar and looked at the nature of the posting .. post something sit back then come back and inflame without answering any direct questions to throw some light on it

LadyTophamHatt · 25/02/2006 12:31

oh...x posted.

Twiglett · 25/02/2006 12:43

and on that particular post Jan btw .. her english is clear and understandable .. totally unlike the postings on the thread that got deleted

Twiglett · 25/02/2006 12:43
mummytosteven · 25/02/2006 12:57

agree with hat - best to ignore a troll as 1)you don't feed them and 2)you don't risk upsetting someone if your suspicions are wrong.

chocolateshoes · 25/02/2006 13:12

have missed all this thread, but the same thing came up yesterday on something I was reading...what is a 'troll'? Sorry to be so stupid - am still quite new to this Mnet jargon!

busybusybee · 25/02/2006 13:19

I agree with Twiglett. I work with people with learning difficulties. I dont think it is possible to be almost completely lucid one day and come across so differently another.

IMHO I think it was most probably a teenager having a laugh at our expense - and laughing hysterically they most probably still are cos MNers were so entirely taken in by it.

Just my opinion - not wishing to offend anyone

zippitippitoes · 25/02/2006 13:22

I think dear is a genuine poster.

JanH · 25/02/2006 13:33

I do to, ztt - if you look at all the threads she's on (and she's been here a couple of weeks now) that is how she writes.

twig, provisional yes - yours is very slightly bigger than mine (ahem) so that's OK (if it was smaller there might be a problem) - now I just need to ask my tame plumber.

MrsSpoon · 25/02/2006 13:41

I honestly thought someone was larking around and apologised on the thread and will apologise on this one.

I have actually been a bit saddened by some posts on MN recently.

busybusybee · 25/02/2006 13:47

Ok I have just read most of her other threads (I cant find the lucid one Twig refers to) and i now agree her tone and grammar etc is similar all the time, which could suggest a genuine poster with a genuine difficulty in understanding. But Im not convinced.

In many ways it seemed rather clever to me tbh

coppertop · 25/02/2006 13:52

I deliberately avoided yesterday's thread. I have no idea whether Dear has difficulties but I remember seeing the post(s) that Twiglett mentions. Tbh it seemed as though there were 2 people using Dear's name/password - one writing in the style of the original post on yesterday's thread and the other in fairly ordinary English.

JanH · 25/02/2006 14:09

I disagree about the relative lucidity

thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat · 25/02/2006 14:22

the point is - no-one can tell whether she is a troll or not - you can speculate all you like, but you cannot know for sure. not knowing leaves you with 3 basic choices

  • appear to be taken in and have some saddo teenager laughing at you - not exactly the end of the world is it?
  • ignore
  • proceed as if a troll and risk upsetting a geuine person. I just can't agree with choosing option 3.
zippitippitoes · 25/02/2006 14:27

I agree with Janh I don't see any difference between the posts and once I started to grasp what she was saying I felt she expressed a genuine concern and think I can see how she might have come to that thought process.

My posts are pretty inconsistent, sometimes I am lazier than other times

spacecadet · 25/02/2006 14:31

best policy is-if unsure, walk away, then you dont risk upsetting someone

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