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This is an excerpt from the Genetic Programming Mailing List,
genetic-programming@cs.stanford.edu, an email-only forum for the 
practitioners of genetic programming.  It is reprinted with the
permission of moderator James P. Rice, who is also the original
poster of this quite humorous piece of linguistic trivia.

> From: James Rice <rice@camis.stanford.edu>
> Subject: Re: Paper on Competitive Fitness Functions

  <James Rice comments on Peter Angelines Submission to ICGA-93>

> Pete: I've started reading your paper.  When I have the time
> I'll try and make some coherent comments, if you like.  Do you
> want such things?  I know that when you get comments from a
> bunch of people you can't satisfy them all (without making it as
> long as War and Peace) and it always ends up like a camel.
> 
> I can give one unequivocal hint, though, which has nothing to do
> with the paper per se, but is to do with making it globally
> intelligible.  I'd suggest globally replacing the word "Quite"
> with "Very".  In the US, Quite means Very, but in the
> UK/Commonwealth it means Slightly.  Thus, if you were to say
> that the evidence for your discoveries is quite strong, the rest
> of the world would think that it was a non-result and dismiss
> the paper.
> 
> I had been in this country for 2 years before I discovered this
> linguistic difference.  I had always assumed that a word as
> common as Quite would obviously mean the same thing.  My lady
> friend (now wife) kept telling me that my cooking was quite
> good.  I was suitably ego destroyed by this but (being British?)
> did not visibly respond to the (perceived) insult and kept
> trying harder to figure out how I could make my cooking better.
> I couldn't figure out for the life of me why she needed to be so
> rude, but assumed she had a good reason.
> 
> Of such things are marriages made?
> 

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