Sad about death certificate (tw: suicide)

[rosie99]

I have to say, especially as a long term member of Rootschat, I'm surprised and a bit offended that several people can read a title saying "sad about death certificate" with details of an ancestor who died horribly and derail and reduce the entire thing to complaining about my use of two letters (and yes, I am myself below 40). Sorry, but shame on anyone who thinks that is the primary point of this thread.

I don't think anyone was complaining I certainly was not, just wondering what the tw stood for.  I have a family member that committed suicide in the 1950's so can understand how you feel.  They lost their wife (my aunt) and even though they remarried they never got over it.

[Andrew Tarr]

Zaphod: Tw means "trigger warning" In other words, 'be warned, sensitive topic'

A rather dubious warning if it isn't understood ? 

Respectfully, I'd argue that it would be understood by most people under the age of, lets say, 40.

Respectfully or not, your (presumably underestimated) age-limit is about half my age.  But it may also be true that many RootsChatters are above it anyway, so your 'tw' will possibly not be understood by the majority 

But as has been suggested, trigger warnings are a daft idea anyway.  If anyone is seriously offended by something which has not been intended to offend, whose is the problem ?

[oldohiohome]

I have to say, especially as a long term member of Rootschat, I'm surprised and a bit offended that several people can read a title saying "sad about death certificate" with details of an ancestor who died horribly and derail and reduce the entire thing to complaining about my use of two letters (and yes, I am myself below 40). Sorry, but shame on anyone who thinks that is the primary point of this thread.

Part of the failure to communicate here might be due to the fact that by the time you have done family history for 20 years or so, as many of us have, you have seen just about everything. And maybe we didn't stop to take note of the fact that this was your ancestor, not some stranger's death record, as he is to the rest of us.

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Some people gasp when they find out their grandmother was pregnant when she married. - Both my grandmother and my wife's were. One of them had to wait to marry because she wasn't legally old enough - she had to be 16.

Some people gasp when they find 14 year olds working in cotton mills. It happened all the time. I've seen a few where they were joined in the mill by their 12 year old sibling.

Others gasp at suicide. My father's uncle killed himself shortly after retiring. My grandmother's aunt also took her own life, I haven't researched possible motives. Personally I was glad to learn about both - not that I was glad about what they did but because it helps explain why I have felt the way I do most of my life.

In your 4th g grandfather's case, being 69 years old might have been a good enough reason. (I am older. Ask me how I feel some days. On second thought, don't.)

I have managed to decipher a few later generation acronyms, just not "tw", so thanks for explaining. Next time I will know.

[Zaphod99]

Ayashi, where was my complaint? I just saw it and didn't know what it meant and asked.  There do seem to be dozens if not hundreds of cryptic abbreviations these days.  I'm not even really sure what a trigger warning actually is.

There is a type of software called a text expander which allows you to create an entry for an abbreviation, and each time you type that abbreviation it will then expand it to whatever the letters represent.

Ideally abbreviations and initialisms should only be used if they are absolutely every day expressions.

Zaph