SIR Tim Berners-Lee

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Mike Lyle - 31 Dec 2003 15:59 GMT

Tried to think of a wisecrack about the announcement of a deserved
knighthood for Tim Berners-Lee, but couldn't get beyond feeble stuff
about a world-wide white knight and dot commander of the Bath bubbles.
Somebody else will be wittier. Good news, though.

Mike.

Reply to this Message

Nehmo Sergheyev - 01 Jan 2004 08:15 GMT

- Mike Lyle -

> Tried to think of a wisecrack about the announcement of a deserved
> knighthood for Tim Berners-Lee, but couldn't get beyond feeble stuff
> about a world-wide white knight and dot commander of the Bath bubbles.
> Somebody else will be wittier. Good news, though.

- Nehmo -
To say Tim is deserving [1] implies you understand the criteria for
knighthood, but the selection process is cloaked. And knighthood is a
joke.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/12/23/295679-ap.html
'The government says about two per cent of the 3,000 people chosen for
honours decline. Most do so quietly, but last month poet Benjamin
Zephaniah announced that he had rejected an OBE because the title
reminded him of "thousands of years of brutality." '

Knighthood is a holdover form the from the royalty heydays, and it
doesn't represent the values Tim supposedly espouses: decentralization,
tolerance, http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/UU.html . Knighthood
means monarchy and class system. If Tim were truly noble, he would have
done like the poet and refused.

[1] I assume you think it's deserved, although you could be just
describing what the announcement said :-).

Signature

*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

Reply to this Message

Mike Lyle - 01 Jan 2004 14:58 GMT

> - Mike Lyle -
> > Tried to think of a wisecrack about the announcement of a deserved
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> To say Tim is deserving [1] implies you understand the criteria for
> knighthood, but the selection process is cloaked.

Eh? It's hardly rocket-science to understand the criteria; but, yes,
the selection process is obscure.

> And knighthood is a
> joke.

Those of us living in the UK reflect on this twice a year. It is a
truth universally acknowledged that the present honours system is
faulty in several ways, many of which tend strongly to devalue the
awards it makes; but there's no getting away from the fact that Tim
B-L deserves some sort of award, and these are the ones at present
available.

[...]

> Knighthood is a holdover form the from the royalty heydays, and it
> doesn't represent the values Tim supposedly espouses: decentralization,
> tolerance,

I can't see how it has much to do with centralization or anything to
do with intolerance.

> Knighthood
> means monarchy and class system.

Historically that's true, but it's now accident rather than essence:
proudly republican France makes people Chevaliers de la Légion
d'Honneur. You can have an honours system without a monarchy, and
without implications of social class. A Soviet Motherhood Medal didn't
reflect class divisions, any more than a Platinum Disk.

> If Tim were truly noble, he would have
> done like the poet and refused.

A knighthood isn't a title of nobility: a knight remains a commoner.
Ben Zephaniah was right in his terms to refuse his medal; Tim was
right in his own terms to accept his knighthood. It won't get him any
privileges or preferential treatment; and where he lives, he won't
even be able to use it as a form of address (not that many people do,
even in Britain).
[...]

Mike.

Reply to this Message

Andy Dingley - 02 Jan 2004 17:27 GMT

>Tried to think of a wisecrack about the announcement of a deserved
>knighthood for Tim Berners-Lee,

You should hang out with more geeks.

One of the W3C lists announced this with a note on the correct
protocol to address him:

sir://timberners-lee.org

--
Congrats to STBL on his elevation from TLA to ETLA

Reply to this Message

Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

SIR Tim Berners-Lee