Caring children under 3

"Kevin Karplus" wrote in message
Snip
Unfortunately, "poor" has many different meanings in English. While
most of us probably got the intended meaning ("impoverished"), it
appears that at least one reader got a different meaning
("incompetent") and there are several other meanings that made some
sense (such as "unfortunate").

If one were to make a remark on this forum that someone was a "poor
mother", it would probably be blocked by the moderator as being
uncivil, since the "incompetent" meaning seems intended.

On the other hand, if someone wrote "you poor dear", it would seem
like commiseration (or, perhaps, pity), since the "unfortunate"
meaning is clearly intended.

Context can help disambiguate meaning, but when talking about a
"program for poor families", there is some ambiguity remaining.

--
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa
Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
Affiliations for identification only.

Thank you for a very good explanation. It's all interpretation of one.
Everyone at some time interprets things differently. I liked & appreciated
your answer. Well said.
--
Mary~
Mom of 2 Sweeties on Earth and 2 Sweeties in Heaven