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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >The issue at hand is not at all blurry to me; it is crystal clear: if a 
> man's word is no good, then he is no good.
> 

I have to say that this trumps all other things said on this thread.   It 
really is just that simple.   If a person were a left wing progressive 
illegal immigrant going about saying, "What is one life compared to the glory 
of 
Allah!"  but they kept their word, they would go up a good number of notches 
in my estimation.

But I am always cautious to not thow out the baby witht the bathwater.  
Political correctness never trumps reality.   If you come around here and 
deal 
with the natives of several generations,  the odds are 99 or more out of 100 
that there are certain characteristics (for good or ill)  that you are 
going to reliably encounter.  To deny they exist does not bespeak 
intelligence.  

There are cultural milieu in which signing a notarized contract constitutes 
giving one's word and anything short of that is just conversation.  
Insisting to those people that giving your spoken word on a matter is binding 
is as 
silly to them as the stereotype  (and ficticious) 'code of the hills' where 
holding a girls hand or seeing her without her sun bonnet was a binding 
proposal of marriage.  

I don't know if this has any basis in reality but there is the popular 
story that someone visits an area where one or another of the Indian cultures 
prevails and greets the new acquaintance with, "I like your jacket" and the 
man immediately takes off the jacket and gives it to him.  The proper 
comment, 
it is said, is "That jacket looks good on you."  the former being a 
request, almost a demand, to have the garment.  I suspect some hyperbole is 
at 
play, but who knows?  

Another example of this sort of thing is what is unconsiously and 
automatically considered private space.  In the Anglo/Celtic cultures it's 
quite a 
large distance.  When we meet to talk, people stand a good 6' apart.  Getting 
any close is variously (and unconsiously) percieved as unwarranted intimacy 
or else aggression and we react accordingly.  But, for example, in the 
Hispanic culture this distance is much smaller, seems to be only about two 
feet.  
In beginning a conversation with many Hispanics, they will come (what is 
percieved in the prevailing culture) uncomfortably close.  I've gotten use to 
this, but I have to overcome an involuntary reaction every time and let my 
knowlede of the situation dictate what is polite.  It would be foolish to 
just dismiss the difference and say, either a person is too close or not - it 
is the individual and has nothing to do with the culture.

Another exmple that surprised me a bit when I first came across it is this: 
 Around here looking someone in the eye when talking with them is a gesture 
of honesty and downcast eyes give a feeling of guilt or guile.  But in some 
variations of the American culture looking in the eye is aggressive and 
downcast eyes is a sign of respect.

Well back around to giving one's word.  It's one of the reasons that 
Appalachian mode of speech is very (annoyingly to those not used to it) 
indirect.  
You don't say "Would you take $100 for that?"  That's too direct and 
constitutes a binding offer.  Rather one says, "What would something like 
that be 
worth do you think?  $100 maybe?"  That way you are sure no binding offer 
has been made.

So while I very much agee with Gene, for me you give your word and that's 
that.  Break it and you are an unreliamble person and I must act accordingly. 
 But I recognize that's a cultural phenomeon and not one of absolute 
reality or logic.  So I look for patterns and find that in many cases 
generalizations are warranted, useful, and help avoid the very sort of 
unpleasantness we 
are talking about.
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