Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 207 posts

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#151

Post by mcpackieh »

cratermoon wrote: post #127
esafak wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Names are not strings. So what are they?

Strings are a primitive type. Names are not strings in the same way Dates are not strings. They can be implemented, represented, and printed as strings, but they have behaviors and meaning that the primitive string type does not. To use another example, a binary tree is not an array, although it can be implemented using an array. Money is not a floating point value, and woe to the programmer that tries to use float f…

There are international standards for representing dates, but none exist for names. Names do not abide by any scheme or set of rules, therefore the only appropriate data structure for storing names is a unicode string. Anything else will exclude people.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#152

Post by tomrod »

bigger_inside wrote: post #54
Jenk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow - Noon is 12pm, midnight is 12am.

I have no idea, I can never remember, it makes no logical sense - no, 12 noon is NOT post-meridian, it IS meridian. I usually go 11:59 or 12:01, and then I'm still not sure if it doesn't put the entire hour in some interdimensional hole where this doesn't make sense.

The interval is clopen. Hence the convention that noon accords to PM

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#153

Post by cubefox »

cratermoon wrote: post #102
cubefox wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those points also apply to other European countries. Though regarding the quotation marks, that seems to be more the fault of the local keyboard layouts. I don't understand why German keyboards don't have the keys to write „ord“. MS Word relies on a software solution to automatically convert "ord" into the German format, but most software (like browsers) understandably don't bother with implementing such rep…

>> Other than in English-speaking countries and some Spanish-speaking countries, the terms a.m. and p.m. are seldom used and often unknown. I did not know that. The terms are from the Latin ante meridiem and post meridiem (meridiem, midday, ante before, post after) so it seemed logical to me that any Romance language would have them. But then, English is not a Romance language (but borrowed heavily from them) so, cha…

Other languages write e.g. 6:00 instead of 6:00 am, and 18:00 instead of 6:00 pm. When you talk about analog clocks you can presumably say something like "it shows six o'clock in the afternoon". (What's the opposite of afternoon by the way? Morning? But isn't that the opposite of evening? Or just ante meridiem? But that's Latin.)

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#154

Post by cubefox »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #115
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the internet breaks its dependency on advertising income (a significant portion of which are either American or global, meaning they want to be inoffensive to Americans) and the internet breaks its dependency on allowing advertising to be channeled through an American company, moderating to prudish American moral standards is here to stay. It would be a net positive if Google's advertising business was broken u…

Sure relative to Europe America has prudish standards. But what about the Arab sphere? China? India? You know, like 3-4 billion people? Yeah, I think America has pretty liberal standards.

Interestingly, the US seems fairly similar to Japan: Large tolerance for violence, small tolerance for nudity. Which is strange, given that US has much stronger connections to Europe. (Though I'm not a Japan expert.)

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#155

Post by tomrod »

eesmith wrote: post #130
tomrod wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clopen intervals in order to have a well-specified time system. [0] [12:00 PM, 12:00 AM) for after the noon instant [1] [12:00 AM, 12:00 PM) for before the noon instant 24-hour time is superior to the mod-12 time system in almost every way but mechanical clock faces and soldier shifts under early systems that used sun dials. However, the equivalent question can be asked by a day is a clopen interval of [00:00 current…

In 24-hour time, those are 12-24 and 0-12, respectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 A place open 24 hours/day is open in the period 0-24.

I don't follow your point. Are you correcting my point on clopen intervals and mod bases?

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#156

Post by cubefox »

smt88 wrote: post #65
mailund wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh my god, as a Scandinavian, the whole American thing about boobs is so annoying! It seems like the internet really want to force me to be shocked about seeing a chest, it's so weird. Most of the time, it is completely outside of a sexual context, but videos get 18+ because you apparently take psychological damage of you see a pair of tits before you're allowed to vote. Actually didn't know about the quote thing tho…

On the other hand, there are literally billions of people in African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures for whom photos of bare boobs are also taboo, so this seems like a case of just having to deal with being a minority in a public square.

In many African countries boobs are even less taboo than in Europe though. In some countries women were pretty much always topless before westerners arrived (in South America, Africa, and countries like Bali). The aversion to nudity seems to be the strongest in Muslim countries.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#157

Post by TeMPOraL »

WalterBright wrote: post #143
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The actual substantive issues of racism and diversity have actually been brilliantly taken over by the ultra-rich and political powers that be. What's the real giveaway? Corporations LOVE talking about them. In the social media massively distributed bullhorn industry, these issues are used to create a distracting perma-debate that both parties can employ and divide for their needed political support. But notice that…

> the fact that the rich have almost all the money Obviously not true. The government has almost all the money. When it needs more, it just prints off a few trillion as necessary. As for the rich, they by and large created the wealth they have. When you invest money in an enterprise that is productive, you're creating wealth.

Both your takes on the rich can be true at the same time. This is still the same stuff Marx, et al. talked about.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#158

Post by cubefox »

some_random wrote: post #82
matsemann wrote: post #5

I'm a but wary in general about how US tech used around the world slowly erodes the nuances of different cultures. Often the software doesn't take into account how things work in other languages, different regions etc. I'm also not sure I'd blame the engineers in SV too much, of course they design software based on their own context. But with tech becoming global, it's a bit sad how it's not prioritized more. Example…

It's not even American prudeness is many cases, it's "making sure everything is advertiser safe" as interpreted by poorly paid Filipino moderators.

"Advertiser safe" means something else for a US American (person/company/advertiser) than for a European.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#159

Post by dagw »

didntcheck wrote: post #22
matsemann wrote: post #5

I'm a but wary in general about how US tech used around the world slowly erodes the nuances of different cultures. Often the software doesn't take into account how things work in other languages, different regions etc. I'm also not sure I'd blame the engineers in SV too much, of course they design software based on their own context. But with tech becoming global, it's a bit sad how it's not prioritized more. Example…

The one that always gets me is how Google's image captcha assumes everyone knows what American school buses, fire hydrants, crosswalks, and various other street features look like. As a youngish EU citizen I do know those from cartoons and the internet, but I doubt my parents do > Or how things are moderated to an US standard It's just comical how adults on Youtube talking about adult topics are pressured into censor…

I doubt my parents do

As someone old enough that I could be a parent of youngish EU citizen, I too watched a lot of US cartoons and movies as a kid.

Re: Subtle ways Microsoft Word has changed how we use language

#160

Post by cubefox »

cratermoon wrote: post #113
GABG wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My name contains a letter not in ascii, breaking lots of systems Tell me about it. In my native language (European) we have accents at the end of some words (like città or pubblicità ; city and advertisement respectively). As someone that works with typography in someway or another, I can't count how many times I had a font that didn't support the character à or é or whatever and I had to choose a font that looks s…

> ISO (please fill me up on the number) 8601 https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html Speaking of dates, if you live in the US did you remember to move your clocks back an hour last night? If you live in Europe, it's next week.

In Europe it was last week.
Post reply on HN