NI 271
Member
Ah, so if you don't use those exact words, you haven't said something (or, as in most cases of this, implied it)? Is that the road we're going down?
Because if that's the case, you didn't say this either. You can't have it both ways, sorry.
The endemic use of "but that's for another topic/that's OT/we're digressing here" etc on these forums is always, with no exceptions, used after someone has already said what they wanted to. If someone considered a matter off topic, and posting about it wrong, they wouldn't post at all, and would therefore not want or need to post about anything being OT. But they do, many of them, multiple times a day across these forums, and it is very clear what the tacit message is. We can all play the game of suggesting something then pretending that wasn't what we meant because it wasn't explicitly said, word-for-word. What we can't do is make those reading it suddenly forget how language works. They know what was meant, even if sometimes we don't like being worked out and called for it.
Ironically I have considered starting a thread about the "but that's off topic" posts several times, as it really, really grates on me. Because it is exactly what I said it was, and cowardly to boot.
