71–80 of 91 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not what I meant by context. "In context" doesn't mean "the literal meaning" and it's easy to see that "straight man" wasn't taken literally by the person who took offense, either. Metaphors must be used in context, they just aren't meant to be taken literally; a metaphor about comedy/theater is always in context when watching (or acting) in one. You don't have to explain it. Likewise, if I talk about a "foil"…
> a metaphor about comedy/theater is always in context when watching (or acting) in one Calling someone in theater a Straight Man isn't a metaphor, that would be an example of a literal usage. A metaphor is when you refer to a distant situation or thing to explain a present one. If you demand that metaphors only be deployed in their "context" you are saying you can only compare situations to themselves.
I don't know if "metaphor" is the word, but in comedy/theater obviously it's not the literal usage either, it's a figure of speech (unless the man is physically straight). That our understanding of this is different is another example that the term wasn't as pervasive or well understood as you initially thought.
Yes, metaphors and figures of speech must be deployed in context, like all of human language. There's a certain kind of humor based on saying things out of context -- I don't recommend you use it at the workplace (or risk being fired). I'm sure you've experienced telling a pun out of context and being misunderstood. The same principle applies.
Human communication is about context. The modern workplace requires more precise consideration of context.
> We must strive to understand that accidents don’t happen because people gamble and lose. The problem is that some accidents do happen because people gamble and lose – or rather, because people cut corners is ways that probably won't matter but sometimes really, really do. The best approach needs to balance both causes of error. I agree that most organizations tend to err too far in the "blame someone" direction – b…
After this incident we can say, they clearly violated this rule. They cut corners. However, we have no clear view of all the incidents they prevented in the past because they violated that rule. We cannot see that there were twenty other times when violating this rule in exactly this way was exactly what kept things working.
This is the nature of hindsight bias. After the fact, it's completely obvious exactly which of the conflicting rules should have been followed. It is obvious because we now know the outcome.
If you're in the thick of an incident making high-pressure, and high-consequence decisions under duress there is no way to actually predict the outcomes that will become obvious only after-the-fact.
Taking a balanced approach is good universal advice for everything. But in this context, it misses the point of blameless retros.
Our cultural norm is to stop investigations once we find the culprit who cut-corners. The consequences of that systemic habit are that we fail to learn and understand all of the complexity that actually contributed to the failure. We cut short our own learning. What's more, we also effectively teach everyone in the system to conceal or withhold their full understanding in the next incident. So we learn only the most shallow details about what actually happened for this incident, and we suppress what we might learn in the next incident.
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Not having everyone on the team be as familiar with English, especially its idioms and figures of speech, is a great reason to avoid using them and stick to (legalistically) simplistic vocabulary. Unfortunately it also makes its usage feel cold and dry which in turn affects the company culture. There have been plenty of times I wanted to use a phrase that was perfect for the situation at hand and all its connotations…
If the meaning you (incorrectly) infer is offensive, you might have a hard time asking... Consider this: what if the person who took offense was gay, was recently harassed at a past workplace, was sensitive about the issue, maybe wasn't a native English speaker, and was told by an older coworker that he would play "the straight man" to his team pitch. And even then, consider that the offended person replied "say what…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It reminds me a little of the time when Berger and Senna were teammates. Two very good drivers but there was no dispute who was the number one and two driver. It’s much easier to keep peace in a team where the hierarchy is clear. It would be interesting if Mercedes hired Verstappen next to Hamilton. I doubt they could keep the peace then.
No way. They already learned that having 2 number 1 drivers doesn't work (Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg on 2016 season). They won that season, but if it weren't for the totally superior car, they were on a tight margin. Distributing the winning points to two drivers doesn't work to secure both the Driver's championship and the Manufacturer's championship. There's a reason why Red Bull picked Max Verstappen over Car…
Redbull haven’t really resolved this problem though. Max obviously has championship potential, and is their number one driver. But they haven’t managed to find a suitable teammate for him. They need their own Bottas. A driver who is comfortable being the number 2, but talented enough to lock out the front row and consistently get on the podium with Max. They’ve found good personality fits (Albon is perfect in that respect), but haven’t found anybody who is also talented enough to give Redbull constructor potential.
That said, I really like Bottas, and I think it’s sad he doesn’t have a shot at fighting for the championship. His performance at CotA last year was amazing, and it felt great to watch him really race Hamilton (though the team arguably gave Bottas a safer strategy in this case).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> a metaphor about comedy/theater is always in context when watching (or acting) in one Calling someone in theater a Straight Man isn't a metaphor, that would be an example of a literal usage. A metaphor is when you refer to a distant situation or thing to explain a present one. If you demand that metaphors only be deployed in their "context" you are saying you can only compare situations to themselves.
Disagreed. I don't know if "metaphor" is the word, but in comedy/theater obviously it's not the literal usage either, it's a figure of speech (unless the man is physically straight). That our understanding of this is different is another example that the term wasn't as pervasive or well understood as you initially thought. Yes, metaphors and figures of speech must be deployed in context, like all of human language. T…
I once worked somewhere that did blameless technical postmortems very well. Whenever something broke, we kept asking questions until we had uncovered what went wrong, and we constantly reminded each other that our failings were in the process, not the people. It worked great, and we ended up with much more robust systems than most other places I'd worked. Sadly, they didn't apply the same ideals to social faux pas. W…
I often hear about this stuff but I have never seen it myself. Do people really ostracize others for saying a sentence they don’t like? I can see it if somebody constantly says stupid or offensive things but not for a few mistakes (are they even mistakes?).
Watch what you say citizen, only those on the highest of horses are allowed to express themselves how they please.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disagreed. I don't know if "metaphor" is the word, but in comedy/theater obviously it's not the literal usage either, it's a figure of speech (unless the man is physically straight). That our understanding of this is different is another example that the term wasn't as pervasive or well understood as you initially thought. Yes, metaphors and figures of speech must be deployed in context, like all of human language. T…
According to your take, you can't use the term "devil's advocate" in this context either -- because it only makes sense in the context of the Catholic church. Metaphors are meant to be used out of context. When I say "I'm in pole position," for example, I don't actually have to be a competitor in an automobile race.
But let's roll with it: "devil's advocate" is a phrase appropriate for the situation described in the original post ("let me hear your suggestion, I'll try to find any flaws or objections to it for the sake of debate"), so it has the correct context, whereas "I'll play the straight man to your suggestion" makes little sense outside comedy, and if the offended person had understood it, they could even have thought it meant "you're the person saying funny crazy things, I'm the sensible person hearing them".
> Metaphors are meant to be used out of context.
No. Let me reiterate: every form of human communication needs context in order to be effective. Metaphors must be deployed in context, otherwise they risk being misunderstood, as it happened in this case.
The context of a metaphor is NOT its literal interpretation. If you think that's what I'm saying, I apologize: that's not what I meant at all.
The context is a situation where the metaphor makes sense or applies. A situation where there's a contest and a "best" position is the right context for saying "I'm in pole position", though it doesn't have to be an actual race; a situation where this doesn't apply is not the right context.