European Dealers Dissing Americans

Try to order from any dealer in Europe. Tell them you live in the USA; 90% of them will ignore you these days. They won't even reply.
I wound up filing a claim on Yvert due to them ignoring my complaint about their bad service. I got a refund of $111 from them and still no explanation.

Lots of these folks are losing US customers, it's sad and frustrating.

What is "dissing" ?

I have no idea, but they are knee deep in Covid in Europe. I do not understand why this still amazes people


Peter

Rod, according to Webster, dissing is criticizing.

Because I'm stationed at a US military base in Japan, I have the luxury of having both a US and a Japanese mailing address. I've completely stopped using my US address because most of my usual ebay sellers have stopped shipping to the US. The big auctionhouses still will, but it takes months for anything to arrive. The problem is clearly the USPS, as I can get packages from Germany to my Japanese address in about 10 days.

I honestly don't blame them. I had the misfortune of having about 20 shipments stuck in limbo for months from the fall through the winter, and I know I sent a lot of emails and requested a lot of formal inquiries with USPS and Deutsche Post. I can't imagine what the sellers are dealing with if my experience was universal across all US buyers.

Still no excuse for not communicating, though. I've had that experience with several business in Germany, mostly because they were telecommuting and weren't communicating well within their own businesses, so everyone thought someone else was answering the mail.

Thanks Peter,
in the dictionary! surprise.
I get the feeling I am not very modern.

I've been continuing to buy from Europe (and elsewhere in the world) through COVID days and have had no problems. These have been small items including stationery that fit in a letter-size envelope, which may be the difference in many cases. Delays have nearly all been surprisingly quite minimal, if at all.

Also if some business does not have the employees around to process shipments, they are stuck. As for Yvert, never my favorite bunch to deal with.

I do know what is going on in Europe now. If they don't feel they can deal with me now, it's OK, just a reply would be nice.

I have a set of Yvert France albums right up to 2005. The last order went direct to them, their package nearly fell apart in the mail; aside from their saying 'sorry' nothing happened, I wound up filing a claim to get my money back.

Per the OED (and memory) it came into the language as a slang verbal abbreviation of disrespect.

There are likely many words in the English language which are not part of one's own English vocabulary, so no need to dis yourself rod222 for not know this term.


More on point is this article found here https://www.theamerican.co.uk/pr/ne...Rises-July-1 from which the first three paragraphs I quote:

The cost of sending mail to the US is to set to rise dramatically from July 1, [2020] as the combination of COVID-19 international flight restrictions and changes in US policies on postal rates for incoming mail combine to create a worrying precedent for international mail.

Royal Mail in the UK is one of a number of international mail providers affected by the circumstances, with the price of sending International standard parcels to the US increasing by 49% on average, and the price of International signed and tracked parcels sent to the US increasing by an average of 38%.

The impact of flight restrictions due to the Coronavirus pandemic is one cause of the price rise, with Royal Mail explaining that "Most of Royal Mail's international mail is carried on commercial passenger flights. There has been a 95% reduction in air passenger flights globally following the outbreak of Covid-19. We are having to use air freight to keep the mail moving instead." According to Royal Mail, this has led to a "five-fold increase in our air freight costs to the US".


Previously the UPU (Universal Postal Union) set the amount a country could collect for incoming parcel post type mail without regard to size, weight nor cost on handling within the USA domestic mail service. It started as a nickle in 1888 and rose up to almost a dollar by 2000 and a bit there after. Basically the USPS was subsidizing the mailing cost to the USA from foreign countries.

In the last two months, I've had no problems with orders from Michel, Nordfrim, Spink, ANK, and Kosel. Also been in correspondence with a few French, German, Czech, and Austrian stores/dealers. No issues, though obviously it seems, your mileage may vary.



One cannot actually dis oneself, it's not a reflexive verb.

As a friend and student's grandmother wrote, "Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn't know before you learned it." [Single from her no die cut press sheet]


As the term dis or diss arose from "street-speak" and in such usages consistent with AAVE (African American Vernacular English) in which non-standard rules of English are followed, dis/diss can be and is freely used in manners inconsistent with your statement. In current slang, and AAVE usages of dis/diss the word's usages far outstrip the limited codification for it in dictionaries of standard English.

Enjoy this poem:

SHI**Y DAYS

LOOKS, LOOKS, LOOKS
that's all anyone ever talks about anymore
and I'm so damn sick and tired of it

People
insult me and put me down
but what they don't realize is
I put myself down
every single time I look in the mirror

So I avoid looking at my reflection
hoping to escape my demons
Praying that my very presence won't offend
wishing my eyes would stop seeking
the imperfections

I'm surrounded by guys
and being the only girl I'm a target
they take their chance
and one by one take a shot at me
They say it's only teasing but if that were true
then why do you always say these things?

So before they can diss me
I diss myself
I always say dissing myself
is better than being dissed

They tell me I'm beautiful one minute
then claim to rather commit suicide than
be attracted to me
and I hide beneath clothes
hiding my body as best as I can
and hide my identity with my hair

I remember being compared to other girls
they were always angels
and I was just the monster hiding under the bed

Ask anyone and they'll say I'm strong
nothing will ever hold me down
but that I'm a little insecure
but they don't know that
beneath the rough exterior is just a girl
with a heart
begging to be loved

I've always been the strange quiet one
with her face stuck in a book
a passion for music
and a love of writing

But back in elementary
I never ate breakfast
a few spoonful's of yogurt for lunch
and a bite or two of dinner
I was so skinny my family called me
Flaca, skinny in spanish

Everyone always said
"you're just so skinny and small"
and never glanced at me twice
but now that I eat they all say
"you're such a fat *ss"
I'm still just a sack of bones
just with a little more meat now

And I remember being told for the first time
"you're beautiful"
but I never believed
not after being told I was liked but
that I wasn't good enough to be dated
or that I'm a "mega whore"
"if you're going to be weird don't talk to me"
"you have a witchy nose, like Pinocchio"
"fat ugly lips"
and "breasts ugly as sh*t"

No I never believed the
"you're beautiful" line
because I never felt beautiful
or even deserving of that stupid line
and now I'll admit
I'm afraid to believe or even think for just one second
that I could ever be
Beautiful


Or one a bit more mainstream using not dis/diss but the full word, disrespect:

Don't Disrespect Yourself
By: Shakira Wilkerson

Why are you disrespecting yourself girl?

Don't you know you're a pearl?

You're a precious jewel,

Please honey, sweetie don't be any fool.



Your body is a temple before the Lord.

Don't mistreat it with harm.

Don't disrespect yourself.

Don't let no one slap you around and put you down.



Stand your ground and know who, and who's you are.

You were created by the creator.

Fearfully and Wonderfully made.

So don't disrespect your self.



Put a stop and an end to this way of living.

Cease from the pain, get away from it all girl.

Don't let anyone disrespect you.

Don't you know you're a queen, a precious gem.



If not, take a look in the mirror

and see all the beauty which God have mad you to be.

So girl, sister, friend and all women around the world,

Don't disrespect yourself.


And for last a simple quote from a local to me writer: William A Delaney's 2005 book, How to Avoid Being a Chicken Head, "if you choose the path of a fool you must accept the responsibility for consequences. Reality is you are not all that and a bag of chips, because if you were, you wouldn't be disrespecting yourself."


Thank you for your input; however, language is not dead on a page, it lives and grows in the air.

Yes, you may "disrespect yourself," but you generally don't "dis yourself." Just not how the "dis" is used. Unless it's 1989 and your a part of the Beastie Boys (it's a song from their album Paul's Boutique). I don't make the rules, I just work here.

i know some in my dutch us stamp collecting club stopped selling/shipping to US a few years ago due to the enormous numbers of shipments that had gone missing...

my shipments both to and from US, always larger lots, go fed-ex en never a problem

I did my first order last week, from my dealer in Lisbon, Portugal, since before the pandemic. Pre-pandemic, it took two weeks for a registered letter to go from Lisbon to metro-Denver. We agreed that it may take double the time due to pandemic issues continuing in the EU and the delivery problems here with the USPS.

I order fairly regularly from Spain without much drama, albeit some delay at times. Most recently, I received a shipment of books that took less than 2 weeks door to door via Correos/USPS.

I have been receiving ebay lots from dealers in the Netherlands and Belgium without any problem.

My PhD in linguistics tells me that any transitive verb in the English language can be given reflexive meaning (subject and object identical) by adding the reflexive pronoun -self.

The Beastie Boys were white and late comers when moving into already present Hip-Hop.

I worked with the urban youth of Oakland, California which produced many rappers and hip-hop artists, especially in the early West Coast Hip-Hop genre. At my request they kindly schooled me in the terms of the street. Oakland was also home to Felix Mitchell and his 69 Mob which developed innovative methods to control the street drug trade, methods that are now standard practice in the modern drug trade. They too contributed to the language of the street.

Here is Scott US 5480, and M.C. Hammer was from Oakland:


MC derived from Master of Ceremonies.


As to mail from my European and Israel sellers, I am getting everything just at much longer time period than pre-pandemic. Some delays too from Asia. My biggest issue are from South American countries to here in the USA.