GUEST,Maire: Since you have said some thought-provoking things in your post, I have decided, for the time being, to assume you're not a troll, with some hesitation on my part.

The "slagging" you speak of is common enough here in the US (although we don't use that term) but it generally only happens among close friends who know each other well enough to trust that there is no hostile intent.

And calling people "eejits" would definitely be crossing over a line of civility, if used in the wrong context. (To be understood, you'd have to pronounce it "ID-ee-ut.") If you called a stranger an "idiot" to his face in some American bars, you'd risk losing some teeth. Not the kind of bars where civilized folksingers hang out, though. But if you didn't apologize, you'd probably be shunned. And if you did that in most private homes, you wouldn't be invited back.

But your post raises the interesting question of whether a cultural difference is involved. Maybe the word "eejit" doesn't carry the same connotations in Ireland that "idiot" does in the US. Could that be the cause of all the problems? I don't think so.

For one thing, I get the impression, from spelling and so forth, that most of our trolls are American, and they are arguing with Americans. Secondly, if it were merely a matter of cultural misunderstanding, or even a difference in individual temperament, it would be easy enough to mend fences with a simple apology. You'd only have to say, "Hey, I didn't mean it that way. Please don't take offense." Yet I rarely see apologies in Mudcat threads. Come to think of it, the only apologies I've ever seen in Mudcat threads came either from members of long standing or from people who identified themselves with an email address, never from anonymous guests.

If you'll notice, the guest in the Paddy O'Brien thread didn't apologize. Instead, he flung out another insult.