Just what does 'slightly polite' mean ?

The Scarlet Manuka wrote:
[. . .]
> Incidentally, does anyone know of a slightly polite way of explaining that
> it is impossible to run[1] Win 98 / Office 2000 on a 60MHz Pentium system
> with 8MB RAM and a 200MB hard disk?
>  > [1] even in the sense in which this word is used by Microsoft.

This is a challenge. The problem is the 'slightly polite' part. As I see it the range goes from:

	Very Rude
	Listen, you asshole, there's no fucking way that that piece of crap will run on that obsolete piece of junk you style a 'computer'. Get the hell out of here and stop wasting my time.
	Slightly Rude
	No offense, but you'd be lucky to get Notepad to run on something with that little RAM and disk space. Office ain't gonna happen.
	Reasonably Polite
	I'm afraid that Microsoft Office simply requires more resources than your computer has at present, so I can't comply with your request. If there's anything else I can assist you with, though, please let me know.
	Supremely Polite
	Ah, yes, the old P60...a classic computer. It's unfortunate that software has become so bloated that even a computer like this can't handle it. Tell you what, let me look at the specs and tell you what kind of upgrades you'd need to be able to install what you need.

It's difficult filling the gap between 'slightly rude' and 'reasonably polite'. How about:

	Slightly Polite
	I'm sorry, but Office won't run on a computer with that little RAM, disk, and speed. If you'll just look at the system requirements printed on the side of the box you'll see that I'm correct. I'm afraid there's nothing further I can do to assist you.

Date posted: 7th February 2000