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Hacker News' Reading Level
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Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
An elevated reading level is not necessarily a sign of more thoughtful or insightful comments. It could just be contrived banality disguised as conceptual depth.
I like words, so I know a lot of words. But I try to take the wordiness way down. Why lose people who don't know the same words? I mean, even if you don't care about losing people who don't have time to learn a more precise-but-obscure synonym, there's always people who learned English as a third language. Why alienate them just to look a little clever? Even this comment has too many big words. If I had more time, I'…
You're only considering the negative aspect of "big words". Sure, there are many instances in which peope unnecessarily use lesser-known synonyms, but it is helpful when people utilize a vocabulary in order to be concise. I think that while the current mantra of "don't use big words so everyone can understand" is called for because of the amount of people abusing vocabulary so others will consider them intelligent, we should remain cognizant of the benefits succinct communication provides.
Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#43Well, it's official: 4chan is smarter than us. http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com&...
That's ok, arxiv.com is smarter than everyone. https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site:arxiv.com&hl=...
Wow, 99% advanced. That actually gives me a lot more confidence in google's algorithms.
Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
I figured that, since Google must read every word of every page to spider it, they must thereby have, as a byproduct, the world's most accurate database of word usage frequencies. "Reading level" would then just be a measure of the average frequency of all the words on a page (thus making words learned in a first year ESL class simple, and technical jargon advanced—quite the same as the measure of difficulty used by…
I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are not incorrect ;) What you are proposing is a statistically generated version of the Gunning Fog Index ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunning_fog_index ) or the Flesch–Kincaid test ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabil... ). If I were Google, I'd try that, but I'd also try something like working out percentage deviation from a Markov chain generated…
> I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are not incorrect
Holy Shnikes, that's a tough one to parse! I wasn't sure what you were saying here, so I'm gonna break it down, working from the end of the sentence:
1. I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are not incorrect
2. I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are CORRECT
3. I'd be lying if I said I don't think you are INCORRECT
4. I'd be lying if I said I think you are CORRECT
5. I think you are INCORRECT
The idea is that each of the previous statements are saying basically the same thing; I'm just cancelling negatives each time. Anyway, am I correct to assume that you think that the GP is incorrect?
Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are not incorrect ;) What you are proposing is a statistically generated version of the Gunning Fog Index ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunning_fog_index ) or the Flesch–Kincaid test ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabil... ). If I were Google, I'd try that, but I'd also try something like working out percentage deviation from a Markov chain generated…
> I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are not incorrect Holy Shnikes, that's a tough one to parse! I wasn't sure what you were saying here, so I'm gonna break it down, working from the end of the sentence: 1. I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are not incorrect 2. I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are CORRECT 3. I'd be lying if I said I don't think you are INCORRECT 4. I'd be lying if I said I think…
Your transition 2 -> 3 is not justifiable, "doubt" is not the opposite of "think". A better parsing leaves "doubt" alone and would end with: "I doubt you are correct."
Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#46[deleted]
Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like words, so I know a lot of words. But I try to take the wordiness way down. Why lose people who don't know the same words? I mean, even if you don't care about losing people who don't have time to learn a more precise-but-obscure synonym, there's always people who learned English as a third language. Why alienate them just to look a little clever? Even this comment has too many big words. If I had more time, I'…
You're only considering the negative aspect of "big words". Sure, there are many instances in which peope unnecessarily use lesser-known synonyms, but it is helpful when people utilize a vocabulary in order to be concise. I think that while the current mantra of "don't use big words so everyone can understand" is called for because of the amount of people abusing vocabulary so others will consider them intelligent, w…
And it is even more important for precision, when a less common word is closer to what you want to say than a more popular one. This is one point Robert Heinlein made in Expanded Universe when he was defending Doc Smith's "space operas" and the vocabulary that was used in them. (Note that since "the map is not the territory", nothing, not your thoughts or even a physical description, can be exactly captured in words, but that doesn't mean it is not sometimes important or at least useful to try to be as precise as possible.)
Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#48Well, it's official: 4chan is smarter than us. http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com&...
That's ok, arxiv.com is smarter than everyone. https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site:arxiv.com&hl=...
To get that, they have to be discarding nearly every word that is common to most web pages and grading only on uncommon words. There is no other way to get that low a basic and intermediate score.
Re: Hacker News' Reading Level
#49https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs=rl%3A1&... and https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs=rl%3A1&...
https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&t...;
So much for Simple English wikipedia!