Harry & Meghan - watching and waiting (no.13)

[yolofish]

A new thread in which to discuss what happens next in this saga.

And best wishes to mustress and thanks for her excellent thread titles.

Thinking about the word 'collaborate'
I wonder if the word meaning got lost in translation i.e American English to British English?

From the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Definition of collaborate
intransitive verb
1 : to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavour
An international team of scientists collaborated on the study.
2 : to cooperate with or willingly assist an enemy of one's country and especially an occupying force
suspected of collaborating with the enemy
3 : to cooperate with an agency or instrumentality with which one is not immediately connected
The two schools collaborate on library services.

I can see that to an American 'collaborate' is a positive word used to say we will work jointly & beneficially for a special purpose & we are very pleased about it.
It is a more dominant/stronger way of saying 'cooperate'.
Whereas 'cooperate' may be seen as a passive/weak word & suggests we have no choice but to work with the other person & just have to do so.

I can also why the word rankles to so speakers of British English because 'collaborate' gives connotations of WW2 i.e. the mayor & prominent citizens of the town collaborated with the Nazis & all but 2 members of the local resistance group were found out & executed.

Yet to avid Insta users 'collaborate' is a positive marketing buzz word in terms of influencers & brands/companies.

I think people are right in saying that using an American PR firm or people whilst great for capturing the US market has not worked well in the UK or European Market, hence causing offence when none was intended.

Finally just to illustrate the difference in a shared language, the word dummy cracks some of my American friends up because to them a dummy is an idiot, whilst to us Brits it's an item a baby sucks on to self soothe.
In the US it's called a pacifier.

@LilyMumsnet - the monitoring of these threads has been incredibly poor. Posters are continuing to make up stories and position them as fact without H & M obviously having the opportunity to respond. Why were threads about the McCann’s regularly deleted but not the current poisonous posts.

I didn't "have a go" at you for goodness sake! It's that kind of claim that makes me not want to engage with you and others like you! I was also responding to the other poster who was imploring us not to be taken in by the media. These claims of having a go and bullying are the reason the thread is getting so much attention from MNHQ. Disagreement is NOT bullying or having a go!

I’ll ask again .. rocking are you British?

Tracy even the US meaning of 'collaborate' implies an equality of effort and standing. That's why it was offensive to people who support QE2. H&M are not in a position to 'collaborate'. There were lots of better ways to phrase it eg ' honoured to continue to serve QE2 and the RF.'
But I do agree that a lot of the PR strategies that have played badly here were focused on the US.

I will not address another post to you rocking. You are twisting what is said to create your own narrative of this discussion with claims of "personally having a go" when I have done no such thing, and I have no intention of being warned or banned because of these kinds of interactions.

Peace out ✌️

I find it highly unlikely most Brits would put any 'wartime' connotation on the use of the word collaborate.

The Duchy lemon shortbread biscuits used to be my fave treat, haven't had one for years since they only seem to sell it in Waitrose now

@WendyMoiraAngelaDarling

And your post came straight after the warning post! I'm glad the earlier allegations have been deleted but it was your post this morning that started the allegations about me. You came on to post about this mean post @TheMustressMhor had received but were vague and it led to the witch hunt against me, and the disgusting twist to my post being about cancer. @themustress you still haven't clarified that, you're just pretend it didn't happen? But @wendy you still see yourself as the victim, and have carried on this passive aggressive campaign about ignoring me with other posters. It's all so cowardly. Point out specific points, put up or shut up. I've only disagreed with you, it's not a crime. People have engaged with me on this thread, and anyone who agrees to try and freeze me out I can do without! I've tried to be polite but it's so childish and hypocritical. Let's leave it.

So not British then..

Flashback Meghan

She’s posted a picture from a pre-marriage charity gig in 2016.

When she first got together with Harry; I took her humanitarian work at face value.
However, given that she likes to plan things a loooong way in advance, I wonder whether this was part of her preparation before meeting Harry.

This is just my opnion! I am not stating it as fact.

These are threads about two celebrities. They exist on lots of people, including Donald Trump etc. although the RF (and DT) clearly do attract more interest than others and also the timing of events means there is more interest in certain periods than at other times. I disagree the monitoring of them has been very poor. There is a small number of posters that would appear to not want any threads to exist on H&M that don't square with their views and they persist in commenting aggressively even when others do 'scroll on by.'

I don't know what these posters' interest is in advocating for these two celebrities and why they don't simply hide the threads. There are lots of things to be outraged by in life and thousands of posts on Mumsnet a day that could be commented on.

Look, we're all adults, no one is obliged to engage with anyone, especially if a post has annoyed you. We can choose what posts to reply to, no?

Right back on track. I ate way too many noodles 🤢

Interesting, Fainne . As someone who has floated in and out of about two of these threads, what it looks like to me is that some posters are determined to get threads pulled and other posters banned because they think they are moral arbiters on threads.

To do so, they're adopting a persona that my DM would call ' someone who could start a fight in an empty house'. They're deliberately posting provocative statements and trying to provoke other posters to personal attacks. I have no idea why they're doing it on this thread which has mainly been about animals, gin, Royal products for sale online and dinner. But they seem to be misrepresenting that to MNHQ in their reports.

@rockingchaircandle @peridito

I agree with your posts. It's a sort of 'you're not welcome here'. We're an in-group, and we don't want outsiders posting.

NEWSFLASH. This is a public forum.

Yes the press have engaged in racism. The almost straight outta Compton remark. The notorious "exotic DNA" article by Rachel Johnson and the comparison of Archie to a chimp By Danny Baker springs immediately to mind.

They were all absolutely disgusting. Completely indefensible. I'm not a fan of MM, but that shit cannot be excused.

What has being British got to do with it? I’m not.

To me the word 'collaborate' smacks of being forced & in hindsight wasn't the right word to use in the Sussex's statement.
Plus it makes me think of a product that you would buy.
The Sussex's should have just written 'we will work with the Queen'
Simple language is often better as it's clearer.

Constantly stating 'I'm not ok' as a reference to Meghan's interview where nobody asks whether she's doing alright. That's disparaging and hurtful and spiteful and bullying and I'd like to see that shit removed from this thread

That's is so over the top, come on. Yes, it's disparaging but many people found the comment absurdly self-pitying and the context it was made in really distasteful. For years pp have been fine taking the piss out of Liz and Charles and Philip, it's part of the fun of having a RF to take the piss out of them and part of the price they pay for their priviledge.

I'm not British. What's being British got to do with it?

I’ll ask again .. rocking are you British?

Relevance?

I’ll be reporting the very many attempts to derail and will leave MNHQ to their job.

Let’s continue with the point of the thread...

👏🏻 👏🏻 👏🏻 @NiceGuyNeddie

I suspect most of these posters were on the Harper Valley PTA.

Oh and her charity cookbook supports terrorism

That was awful. Fuck the Daily Mail for such nonsense. I was so glad to see that purchases of the cookbook spiked in support of MM.