Posted by Dr. Bob on June 23, 2008, at 1:35:19
In reply to Re: Please be sensitive » muffled, posted by ClearSkies on June 16, 2008, at 9:46:15
> > fractious- 1 : tending to be troublesome : unruly <a fractious crowd>
>
> this did cause me distress. I chose the description of the friendship as carefully as I could (I even looked the darn word up on the dictionary and said, yup! that's what it was). I thought that I was only being accurate, as the adjective does not imply blame, and neither was I when I was describing it.
>
> This PBS does not sit well with me. But perhaps it's telling me to just shut my yap and go away. That in trying to offer an explanation I'm looking more like a fool than I already feel.I apologize for not replying sooner. I didn't mean to cause you distress or to imply that you should shut anything, let alone go away. Neither did I mean to imply that you implied blame. But I do think that if a friendship is referred to as troublesome, the friend may feel they're troublesome, too.
In this case, I wonder if hearing about Slinky contributed to the trouble. Being fractious in the sense of "2 : quarrelsome, irritable" can be a way of dealing with loss.
> Is there a deputy in the house?
Muffled, thanks for showing how someone doesn't need to be a deputy to try to reach out, support, calm, and defuse a situation.
Bob
poster:Dr. Bob
thread:834469
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20080424/msgs/836012.html