D users in Munich, Rome, Venice, or Frankfurt?

[BCS]

Hello Georg,

> 
> A serious point, however, is that (in my first language) Finnish, the
> spoken language doesn't only *not* differentiate between gender, it
> also /doesn't/ differentiate between humans and other instances (be
> they living or inanimate!!!). You'd say
> 
> "se meni ulos" -- {he | she | the dog} went out
> "se putos" -- {he | she | the dog | a flowerpot | a brick} dropped
> Contrast this to "modern, politically correct American English", where
> one says "she" of the programmer, and "they" of any third person. The
> latter of which is not only semantically + grammatically incorrect, it
> also makes sentences cumbersome, but foremost, diffuses and murks up
> the original intent of the author.
> 

Ah! One of my favorite qwerks of the English language, how to refer to a 
specific single someone of unknown gender without insulting them: "it"?

>> And, BTW, if we're discussing changes to the newsgroup structure, it
>> might make sense to have an "off-topic" newsgroup for these kinds of
>> discussions.
>> 
> Errr, the mid-thread derailing of a topic is what makes the most
> entertaining, often even unexpectedly informative (and therefore
> idirectly, very valuable) contributions to our newsgroups.
> 

I really ought to have a filter set up to flag for extra attention any thread 
with OT in the title :)

> The fact that (even NG discussions) tend to derail intermittently,
> does seem at first look, as simply an annoyance that only introduces
> static and clutter to an otherwise worthwhile use of bandwidth. Fact
> is, the cost of that is actually less than the benefit, because only
> by allowing it, many treasures otherwise forever undiscovered, are
> found.
> 

I love "mark thread as read" it makes reading even the most boring thread 
easy.