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Hacker News' Reading Level

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Re: Hacker News' Reading Level

#51

Post by gjm11 »

astrofinch wrote: post #31
j_baker wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"contrived banality disguised as conceptual depth" Is it possible this phrase is an example of itself? :-)

Words that describe themselves: short, convoluted, awkward, multilingual.

Is the word (assuming it to be one) "non-self-describing" self-describing, or non-self-describing?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grelling-Nelson%20paradox

Re: Hacker News' Reading Level

#52

Post by gimpf »

billswift wrote: post #45
biotech wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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."

My dear, you just lost the "don't".

Re: Hacker News' Reading Level

#53

Post by oh_ryan »

biotech wrote: post #44
nl wrote: post #29

Earlier 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…

I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are not incorrect

I'd be lying if I said I don't doubt you are correct

I'd be lying if I said I think you are correct

Re: Hacker News' Reading Level

#56

Post by harshpotatoes »

I think it's worth noting that most of the articles submitted to HN have no comments on them, meaning if those pages without comments were indexed by google and included in their measure of our reading level, there would be many pages consisting of only the words: "flag, 1 point by xxxx, no comments, Hacker News, new, threads..." etc etc. So maybe that has some influence on google's calculation.

Re: Hacker News' Reading Level

#57

Post by G_Wen »

dantle wrote: post #49
Mithrandir wrote: post #14

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs=rl%3A1&#38... and https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&tbs=rl%3A1&#38...

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&t... ; So much for Simple English wikipedia!

Interesting, perhaps in their effort to avoid short scientific terms they have substituted in longer more common words. For example describing a tumor as "an abnormal new mass of tissue that serves no purpose". http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=tumor The seemingly paradoxical result in an increase in understandability but a decrease in usability. Think of it as reading a passage where almost every noun has been substituted by a dictionary definition.

Re: Hacker News' Reading Level

#58

Post by G_Wen »

Alex3917 wrote: post #38

At the risk of stating the obvious, you can get the results for the reading level of your own HN comments by adding your user name. It's kind of interesting going through the leader board and looking up different people's scores.

Unfortunately by drawing attention to this information I am now obligated to substitute concise words with superfluousness ones.

Re: Hacker News' Reading Level

#60

Post by nl »

biotech wrote: post #44
nl wrote: post #29

Earlier 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…

I had to triple check to make sure I got it right, and I wrote it.

Yes, I think the GP is incorrect.

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