Path: news.ccsf.jp!tomockey.ddo.jp!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!newsfeed00.sul.t-online.de!newsfeed01.sul.t-online.de!t-online.de!news.germany.com!proxad.net!feeder1-2.proxad.net!news.tiscali.fr!fr.colt.net!writer!not-for-mail From: Jean-Marc Desperrier Newsgroups: fj.life.in-japan Subject: Re: A Redress of Grievances Date: Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:29:56 +0100 Organization: ImagiNET / Colt Internet Lines: 22 Message-ID: References: <02usi317fregekiq9i0qruopq2kvmqpup0@4ax.com> <472e7f60$0$22529$8f2e0ebb@news.shared-secrets.com> <1194271079.583230.171040@t8g2000prg.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: host.104.92.68.195.rev.coltfrance.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: reader1.imaginet.fr 1194341385 19000 195.68.92.104 (6 Nov 2007 09:29:45 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@imaginet.fr NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Nov 2007 09:29:45 GMT User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a9pre) Gecko/2007110405 SeaMonkey/2.0a1pre In-Reply-To: <1194271079.583230.171040@t8g2000prg.googlegroups.com> Xref: news.ccsf.jp fj.life.in-japan:166236 Declan Murphy wrote: > On Nov 5, 9:17 pm, Jean-Marc Desperrier wrote: >> CL wrote: >>> [...] probably best positioned to be gadflies. >> It's interesting to see how a positive meaning for that word is possible >> in english, whereas in french La Fontaine caused only the negative >> meaning to survive through the fable "the coach and the fly" (http://oaks.nvg.org/lg2ra12.html#ticoachfly). > > gadfly can be positive? :-) It looked positive in the quote above, and wikipedia said it could be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadfly_(social) ""Gadfly" is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or attempt to stimulate innovation by proving an irritant." "During his defense when on trial for his life, Socrates, according to Plato's writings, pointed out that dissent, like the tiny (relative to the size of a horse) gadfly, was easy to swat, but the cost to society of silencing individuals who were irritating could be very high." My wrong :-)