From: graydon@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Graydon)
Subject: courtesy, and some simple and useful rituals pertaining to same
Organization: M.B. Cormier INC.
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 21:29:39 EDT

Greetings!

Under the heading of 'courtesy', I thought I should commuicate
to you good folk a certain little details of a ritual practice that 
can aid greatly in not expending more energy than absolutely neccessary 
on feeling insulted, maligned, or otherwise insufficently respected 
by those around you.

This little ritual is being cribed from french romance novelists,
because I don't know the wording for the High Medieval version, although
I'm quite sure there was one, for indeed, it is nowhere recorded that
anyone was so unfortunate as to die abruptly after treading upon the
toe of the likes of Sir William the Marshal, and so I feel myself quite
safe in asserting that there must have been a practice amound such 
great and high peoples of giving the potentially offending party a
just, proper, and measured time in which to affect their apology.

Now, since, if one wished to establish a seemly reputation, one had
to balance several conflicting requirements (being seen as brave, being
seen as not being rash, and being seen as safe to be around), and a
serious failure of such balance could get one quite killed, a little ritual
grew up around people making dubious statements, directed at your person.

<guy in really strange clothes>: Graydon, you are a true plootz.

<Me>: Sir, you do call me by a word strange to my ears, which perhaps
an injudicious man might regard as being of such as nature as to cast
some slight upon his character.  (note: 'insult' is *strong* language -
an insult is something one has to do something about, and this little
dance is intended to find out if an insult has in fact happened.)

<guy in r.s.c.>: My lord, never would such a thought inhabit my mind,
and far less should it ever escape my lips!  In the toungue of my people,
'plootz' describes one who is possessed of the peculiar favour of character
that, although he is eccentric, his conduct is such that his friends 
regard him as a good fellow none the less.

See how easy this is?  The wierd word was something I could safely presume
to be a compliment.  Now, for a more complicated example:

<Harried Autocrat>: You there, lumber your excessive carcass out of the way!

<Sir Olaf the Redoubtable>: Sir, I nearly think you have made a comment
denigrating the comelyness and utility of my frame.  Since I am in no wise
a fit person to comment upon the comlinesses thereof, I may limit my answer
to observing that if such was indeed your intent, I would be most pleased
to demonstrate the utility of my frame to you upon the very instant that
this becomes convienent to you.

<Harried Autocrat, brain in *whups*! mode>:  Sir Knight, such was never 
my intent; pray forgive an hasty toungue, as I am much overwrought with
the arraying of the hall.

<Sir Olaf, beaming benignly>: Surely, good sir, as I do see clearly that
despite your haste about your labours, you have but little outsped your
courtesy.

Of course, the unfortunate version goes like this:

<Don Grimflounce>:  Sir, I am very nearly certain that, during that last
dance, you did chance to be partnered with Lady Svelte.

<Don Swishpiffle>: Sir, in this I believe that you are correct; is there
some connection between this happy occurence and your obvious agitation?

<Don Grimflounce>: In as much as you, Sir, did see fit to direct your
eyes downward through the greater part of the dance, resting your gaze
upon a part of Lady Svelte's anatomy that ought Not to have been your
sole interest, and that further, your smirk was all the while wide and
indulgent, I nearly think that there is.

<Don Swishpiffle>: Why, Sir, I nearly think that you mean to say that
my intentions toward the Lady are indecent, and not the proper homage of 
love that a true Cavelier should pay.

<Don Grimflounce>: And if I do?

<Don Swishpiffle>:  I should think it would then be my part to point out
that you have little place to say such a thing; should the lady herself
object to my conduct, my spirits would be of the instant quite desolate
and trampled, but as you, sir, are well known to have been quite unsuccessful
in your suit to the lady this twelvemonth past, I should think your words
on the subject to carry less weight than a feather, and that you have
little grace to claim thereby that I have done you an injury.

<Don Grimflounce, losing his temper>:  Well then, Sir, as an aid to your
comprehension and the correcting of your conduct, I say that your conduct
was lewd, improper, and ill befitted a gentleman.  I would further say
that any such toad sweat as has the grave disfourtune to touch upon your 
mustache would be forever be debased and dishonoured!

At this point things rapidly devolve into a discussion of seconds, place
of meeting, and a discussion of just how thoroughly they intend to try to
skewer each other.

It is worth pointing out that such peoples as the Welsh can be so lyrical
that it is hard to tell if they are insulted by your speach, or by a sudden
memory that an English tax collector did visit an indignity upon their
grandsire, and that such people as the Picts could carry out any of the
above conversations by means of minute shifts of posture and squinting.

However, the basic sequence should be clear to all peoples - first, an
inquiry to determine if the way in which you understood the other gentle's
speach was in fact that way in which it was intended.  If they *did* mean
what you thought they meant, point out to them that, given what you know 
by their immediate speach, you nearly think that they mean to do you an
injury.  (And if any are so base as to scoff at a slight to a gentle's
honour as being an injury, I would beseach them to remember that while
these all too frail mortal frames are but as dust, honour is held in
the sight of the Eternal, and endures for all time.)  If they again reply
that they did indeed intend to do you an injury by their words, it is
then that a proper, wise, and judicious soul will regard themselves as
having been given an insult, and not before.

Graydon


        Graydon the Curious         /graydon@micor.ocunix.on.ca
  Skraeling Althing, EAldormere, MK / "Nihil est quin obsisti possit"
From: Tim@f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Tim)
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