'Iconic' What does it mean? What is it being made to mean?

[ahinton]

You seem to be on top... form today, ahinton.

Ah, one tries - one tries...

[Ferretfancy]

amateur51

Both your examples ate too cheerful for me. I go for the smiling through tears and tough underneath pitch myself!

[Don Basilio]

Icons increased with invention, particularly media. Were there any Victorian icons?

The Light of the World?

Ophelia?

The Fighting Temeraire?

[ahinton]

amateur51

Both your examples ate too cheerful for me

What have they cheerfully eaten?

[Flosshilde]

You probably wish that you'd not mentioned this now!

You said it

I buy a ticket to travel on a train (or bus, or aeroplane,) - I'm a passenger. I buy a cup of tea in the station buffet - I'm a customer. If I go to university to study for a degree, I'm a student. I have problems managing my life & social services get involved, I'm a client. I become ill & have to go to hospital, I'm a patient. The use of the all-embracing term 'customer' for these various situations obscures the very different relationships I have with the various providers of services, & in many cases reduces the relationship to an impersonal financial one & reduces the quality of service.

[Flosshilde]

o my dear Mangerton - I am so impressed! Because you don't only have mission statement - you also have a way -

[I]Our Way

•We understand our customers and their needs
•We make it easy for our customers to get things right
•We believe that most of our customers are honest and we treat everyone with respect

Not the Dept of Work & Pensions, then

•We ... are relentless in pursuing those who bend or break the rules

& not the part of the Inland Revenue that deals with rich tax evaders & non-doms, either

[mangerton]

Not the Dept of Work & Pensions, then

Errmmm........ no.

& not the part of the Inland Revenue that deals with rich tax evaders & non-doms, either

No, not that part. Actually, IR no longer exists; it's now HMRC.

Thank you, btw, for your post above on non-customers. Very accurate and succinct, although you could have added, "when I pay taxes, I'm a....."

[Lateralthinking1]

In some ways I prefer generic terms like "customer". This idea that the student, the driver, the taxpayer, the hard working man or woman, the elderly, the unemployed, the pedestrian, the disabled and so on are different people. It's utter nonsense. Some of these things exist in many at the same time and where they don't, they exist in the same people at different times of their lives.

[kernelbogey]

[....]I happen to think that there might be thought to be sufficient commonality between this thread and the neologisms one to suggest their merger, but that's up to the moderators' discretion, of course.[....]

As there is quite an interest in language and its usage on the boards, I suggest considering a sub-forum of P3 on language. FF?

[ahinton]

You said it

I buy a ticket to travel on a train (or bus, or aeroplane,) - I'm a passenger.

As I said before, not necessarily true. If you buy a travel ticket and give it to someone else to travel, you're a customer and the recipient of the ticket is a passenger when he/she begins the journey for which the ticket applies; likewise, if someone buys you a travel ticket, you're the passenger when the journey begins but the purchaser is the customer.

I buy a cup of tea in the station buffet - I'm a customer. If I go to university to study for a degree, I'm a student. I have problems managing my life & social services get involved, I'm a client. I become ill & have to go to hospital, I'm a patient. The use of the all-embracing term 'customer' for these various situations obscures the very different relationships I have with the various providers of services, & in many cases reduces the relationship to an impersonal financial one & reduces the quality of service.

The point here is that the term customer does not exclude others. As we have seen, you can be a customer and a passenger, just as you can be a customer and a student if you fund all or part of your tuition costs yourself. If you receive hospital treatment under the NHS, you're a patient and the taxpayer is the customer, whereas if you receive it privately you're still the patient but either you or your unsurer or both are the customer/s. Apart from the interchangeability of the terms "customer" and "client", both of which denote a transaction or tansactions between parties and the provision of goods and/or services by a provider to that customer / client, neither term - customer or client - excludes the relevant use of another one to describe the self-same relationship.

[amateur51]

amateur51

Both your examples ate too cheerful for me. I go for the smiling through tears and tough underneath pitch myself!

Like when dealing with abusive posts from a certain party, Ferret?

[Flosshilde]

The point here is that the term customer does not exclude others. As we have seen, you can be a customer and a passenger, just as you can be a customer and a student if you fund all or part of your tuition costs yourself. If you receive hospital treatment under the NHS, you're a patient and the taxpayer is the customer, whereas if you receive it privately you're still the patient but either you or your unsurer or both are the customer/s. Apart from the interchangeability of the terms "customer" and "client", both of which denote a transaction or tansactions between parties and the provision of goods and/or services by a provider to that customer / client, neither term - customer or client - excludes the relevant use of another one to describe the self-same relationship.

All of which rather misses the point I made.

[Flosshilde]

"when I pay taxes, I'm a....."

Please complete the phrase in 5 words. The best entry wins the prize

[Flosshilde]

If you buy a travel ticket and give it to someone else to travel,

I don't think I've ever done that (actually you can't with a plane ticket, can you?).

[DracoM]

Gosh, I wish I hadn't started this thread now!!!