[Steve_Alaniz]

Hi All,
Hey I notice a lot of teams out there accept their invitation to an alliance by saying "Team xxxx Graciously accepts your invitation" (xxxx = your team number smartie!) This is a contradiction of terms. Gracious is one of those adjectives you cannot apply to yourself. Others have to apply it to you. Calling your own action gracious is a form of self praise, being a bit presumptuous and lacking the humility that goes along with tact and courtesy. So you can never really self apply the word "Gracious". It's like saying "We silently accept".
Yes I KNOW what you mean and I agree that the spirit and understanding among FIRSTies (Is that a word?) is that the acceptance is in the spirit of gracious professionalism. SO why am I bothering if we all understand?
OK Here's the deal. It's bad English. Your English teachers might start dumping essays on FIRST team members over the regional weekends if they hear you misuse "Gracious".
Just kidding, they'd never do that.
The bigger reason is simple. The media usually show up at the finals hoping for a story. If they could accurately predict the timing they would show up for the last round of the last match...(Sorry kids, good news don't sell newspapers and FIRST is always good news!) But I have seen them there for the alliance picks. These are men and women who have been savaged by unscrupulous modifiers of otherwise perfect text, AKA Editors. They will pick up immediately that you are misusing "Gracious" and if they are really mean will quote you so that the Editor can't correct it and well... your school will come across as one that teaches robotic but whose students ain't got no sense of good grammar.
It's far safer to "...Happily accept your gracious invitation..." or "...Gratefully accept your invitation..." something that doesn't sacrifice proper wording and yet still shows the spirit of FIRST.
Having said all this, if someone can demonstrate that "Gracious" actually CAN correctly be used as a self description, then I will "Graciously stand corrected."

JUST A THOUGHT!

Best wishes

Steve Alaniz