On 4-8-2009 0:40, Stephen wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 22:03:00 +0200, andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> 
>> Or perhaps you are not as bad as my wife, she is able to really quote 
>> verbatim (or at least that is what she claims). Quoting both herself and 
>> the other person literally without any indication that it is a quote and 
>> by whom. Which means that if she uses 'you' she can mean either that 
>> other person or herself if she is quoting that other or me if she has 
>> ended the quote. I find it rather confusing at times.
> 
> Ah! A mere male. :) Thus is a common condition for us ;)

Yes a mere male. I can do 4D visualization in my head, but I can't 
handle insufficient or conflicting information.

>> Also sometimes confusing, but what happens to more people, is mentioning 
>> only a first name and leaving to the other person which one of the Johns 
>> you both know is meant.
> 
> But you know that Jan Wit would never do that and Jan Zwart is doing it all the
> time so it must have been Jan who said it. Yes or no? :-)

Well no, more like 'Jean called...' and I have a cousin called Jean who 
might have called, she has a brother with that name as has of our 
neighbours and a close collaborator or two. All might have called and it 
is up to me to figure out which one. You can only do that if at some 
point she refers to something you already know. In which case there was 
no point in mentioning it (for a male). Luckily she is a woman so there 
is a good change that somewhere she mentions a couple of things she told 
a few times before. Then you only have to hope that it is specific 
enough and you can figure it out before she figures out you don't have a 
clue who she is talking about.

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