Horological Meandering

Marcus Hanke
[PuristSPro Moderator]
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Dear friends ...

Dear friends,

and, first of all, dear - everything Austrian within myself hesitates to use your first name, but I struggle that emotion down successfully - Melvyn: wow .... I am speechless - and for those knowing me this is a really rare occasion. Yet this state of affairs is not of long duration, so I am tremendously thankful for your more than kind laudatio, which I do not really deserve.

As a matter of fact, I am currently spending a week in Austria’s middle of nowhere, a rural area that is better known for frog races around granite rocks and dark forests than for modern infrastructure. This causes our bloodlines, the online communication with the web, to fail miserably. Whenever I want to make a phone call, or to log into a web site, the only spot with at least rudimentary signal reception is just outside the house walls, in some four meters height, forcing me to lean out from the window in a sportive effort not unlike that of a racing sailing yacht crew member, or a mountain climber. Even then, connection speed is measured in individual bytes per second, making it very difficult to keep track of discussions here at PPro, let alone posting own messages.

This reminds of the very same technical problem, compromising my first communications with Thomas Mao, on the issue of becoming a moderator of the PuristS: ten years ago, I had been without cellphone signal for days, and only when visiting an old castle that was built on a mountain top, I was lucky to receive Thomas’ invitation mail. For the following message exchange, I always had to visit this castle ruin, setting up my Psion PDA and using my cellphone as modem, in the middle of snowstorms and freezing cold - but only there I could receive and send mails. Apparently, not much has changed, only the Psion gave way to a more modern tablet PC.

Well, enough talk about hero deeds of yesterday, but it was not me who started it ...

Yes, it is correct that Austrians normally are rather anal about their titles, be they inherited, awarded or even received by marriage. In rural areas, it is still common to greet an academic’s spouse as “Mrs. doctor” in small shops, and police officers are often still impressed by the academic title printed in front of the name in the driver’s license. Even at the military, my drill sergeant always called me “Doctor Hanke”, only to chase me around the obstacle course exactly the way he did with my poor non-academic fellows ...

But I have to defend my honor by stating that I had adopted the anglo-american way of using the forename in communication long before I became a Purist already, and I prefer to be addressed without any title, which may be owed to my job at the university, where academic titles are not used among the faculty members, since all have one.

Hence I might not be a typical Austrian like the ones described in Melvyn’s post, at least not regarding titles and names. However, I am a typical example in many different ways: a common saying goes, that when Germans say: “The situation is serious, but not hopeless”, an Austrian would state: “The situation is hopeless, but far from serious!” Only Austria once could become a world leading power by loosing wars, but politically clever marrying of its rulers. Austria is infamous for always getting along in a light manner, bordering on sloppiness, but putting an emphasis on friends and family.

This also explains the importance my fellow moderators and guests at PuristS and PuristSPro always had during the past ten years: I considered them part of my family, even if - a tribute to the modern age of virtual relations - I did not have the chance to meet more than a few of them in person. But to know that all around the world were people with whom I could share joy and trouble, crisis and success, was an important pillar in my life.

Therefore I want to thank you for all your time, your support, your friendship and interest shown in the past decade. For me it is a privilege to be member of this great community, and please let me express my hope that this relation will continue for the next decade.

I want to wish you all a great New Year and a good time here at PuristSPro!

With kind regards,
Marcus