You’re missing Phil’s point. In the example he would speak French with men (outside mixed company) and German with women, and there would be nothing objectionable to this if that language distribution was indeed universal. The problems are that some women don’t speak German, some prefer French and sometimes people forget they are in mixed company and should speak English. It would be best to speak English in public and with strangers of either gender and French or German only with people whose language preferences you know.
(There may be also some men who prefer German, but they hardly ever complain, perhaps because hardly anyone addresses them in German so they feel no entitlement, or because they see their preference as embarrassing and prefer not to make it public)
Except that the statements here are public, and if you speak French in reply to one person, then people who don’t speak French are going to be left out of the conversation. English-only is the proper Schelling point for this public forum.
It was a metaphor. The actual property being referenced has fine enough gradations that there is no Schelling point, nor a particular point that can be agreed by everyone to be “English”. (Nor is aiming at a point in this space any guarantee of hitting it., nor will people describe the same points with the same words).
You’re missing Phil’s point. In the example he would speak French with men (outside mixed company) and German with women, and there would be nothing objectionable to this if that language distribution was indeed universal. The problems are that some women don’t speak German, some prefer French and sometimes people forget they are in mixed company and should speak English. It would be best to speak English in public and with strangers of either gender and French or German only with people whose language preferences you know.
(There may be also some men who prefer German, but they hardly ever complain, perhaps because hardly anyone addresses them in German so they feel no entitlement, or because they see their preference as embarrassing and prefer not to make it public)
No, no, you’ve both got it wrong. You speak Italian to women, French to men, and German to your horse.
Except that the statements here are public, and if you speak French in reply to one person, then people who don’t speak French are going to be left out of the conversation. English-only is the proper Schelling point for this public forum.
It was a metaphor. The actual property being referenced has fine enough gradations that there is no Schelling point, nor a particular point that can be agreed by everyone to be “English”. (Nor is aiming at a point in this space any guarantee of hitting it., nor will people describe the same points with the same words).