ggreg,
I see your point, but hard advice with cold insults usually just hurts the person and turns them away.
Thank you.
Let's save the "Gunny Highway" act for heresiarchs, perverts and politicians. :drillsergeant:
A young LADY ( not a foreign term in MOST Trad vocabularies ) deserves a DECENT, courteous explanation. At least, the first time she is addressed.
A man who has faced REAL combat, not some merely ideologically-driven banter in a classroom or or the internet, is usually pretty grateful for the opportunity to show a little of the grace of civilization toward the weaker, gentler sex. He knows where and when, and against whom, to turn up the heat if necessary.
Editors make a very big deal out of reminding their novelist clientele that, given the choice in a particular scene, it is always preferable to SHOW, rather than TELL, the reader whatever the point of the scene is.
Seems, despite themselves, not a few editors may have gotten onto the secret of parables.
Some of
those have lasted quite a bit longer than even the "best of the best" best sellers in history. ( And, to my chagrin, as ggreg's terribly sharp mind will catch instantly, my own responsive post to Angela had much too much "telling" in it, as well. )
Why? Because folks naturally remember stories, scenes, etc. far longer than a cold recitation of hard, objective information.
As for actually communicating with someone looking for our advice, even the most sweltering, miserably overheated soul on the hottest day of the year would more likely prefer to be cooled down with a light spray than hit with a fire hose.