Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar • Hacker News Board

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#31

Post by RamblingCTO » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

or efficiency is more important because you have a high load of people you need to interact with. I was a grammer nazi back in the day but stopped caring because the ROI is minimal and I've got shit to do that's more important. so maybe it's the same for them

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#32

Post by bluepeter » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #30

bluepeter wrote: post #22

British aristocracy has been pronouncing their own surnames wrong for centuries on purpose. Cholmondeley is "Chumley" Featherstonehaugh is "Fanshaw." If you read it phonetically you mark yourself as an outsider. The misstake is the membership card. (Heck, even in Portland we locals hear about misprouncing Couch St probably every year in local press as some bar for membership to our own locals only vibe.)

There's also the British penchant for deliberately mispronouncing French words. I have heard "renaissance" pronounced "reh-NAY-sance", "fillet" pronounced "fill-it", "valet" as "val-it" and so on. I think it's a national point of pride to pronounce the words of their neighbor incorrectly.

Yep. And try "lieutenant" or "herb" on for size. (Edit: I guess "herb" is a bit of a complex one... originally from Latin's "herba" where the H was pronounced, but from UK it came most immediately from French's "herbe" with no H sound. So UK did somehow shortcut back to a more original sound.)

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#33

Post by jordanb » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:34 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

Yeah and it's really interesting watching people try to come up with alternate explanations. The people who rule us can't be this mid, otherwise the very concept of meritocracy is bunk.

Or at the very least, the things we tell ourselves are meritorious are not what actually what causes people to rise to the top of our society.

By the way I'm also astonished by their lack of taste. The Epstein properties give off a sinister vibe as one would expect, but watching -- for instance -- Architectural Digest videos you get the impression that either the property has been professionally staged with pottery barn/cb2 esthetic or it was decorated with painting-of-dogs-playing-poker levels of sophistication.

Not surprising I guess but you'd think someone with essentially unlimited budget who has complete dominion over their own time wouldn't end up living in an enormous, expensive, alienating ugg boot.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#34

Post by hshdhdhj4444 » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:36 PM UTC

RamblingCTO wrote: post #31

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

or efficiency is more important because you have a high load of people you need to interact with. I was a grammer nazi back in the day but stopped caring because the ROI is minimal and I've got shit to do that's more important. so maybe it's the same for them

You’re right.

Gotta be really incredibly efficient while planning your time on Epstein Island doing Epstein Class things to Epstein girls.

These world changing guys clearly have no spare time on their hands at all.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#35

Post by jpfromlondon » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

teachrdan wrote: post #30

bluepeter wrote: post #22

British aristocracy has been pronouncing their own surnames wrong for centuries on purpose. Cholmondeley is "Chumley" Featherstonehaugh is "Fanshaw." If you read it phonetically you mark yourself as an outsider. The misstake is the membership card. (Heck, even in Portland we locals hear about misprouncing Couch St probably every year in local press as some bar for membership to our own locals only vibe.)

There's also the British penchant for deliberately mispronouncing French words. I have heard "renaissance" pronounced "reh-NAY-sance", "fillet" pronounced "fill-it", "valet" as "val-it" and so on. I think it's a national point of pride to pronounce the words of their neighbor incorrectly.

America is at least as guilty of mispronouncing non-english words it's just natural drift.

As to fillet and valet, they joined english before the contemporary french pronunciation, and are much closer to the middle-french.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#36

Post by joe_mamba » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:37 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

>That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills

Reminds me how I double and triple check the emails I sent out to the higher ups in the company to make sure spelling and language tone was good, while in his emails Epstein was like "wazzup retards, kiddie fiddling party at my place" and getting replies from 3 world leaders and 5 CEOs. Then him and Israel's' former PM were both struggling to spell PALANTIR over the phone. It's a big club and you're not in it.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#37

Post by jordanb » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

RamblingCTO wrote: post #31

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

or efficiency is more important because you have a high load of people you need to interact with. I was a grammer nazi back in the day but stopped caring because the ROI is minimal and I've got shit to do that's more important. so maybe it's the same for them

They're willing to boil the oceans to write better emails and, alternately, not have to read emails others have sent. So I don't think it's a lack of desire. I suspect it's more atrophying of ability to put effort into anything.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#38

Post by hax0ron3 » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

That may be the case. Also, a man's intelligence is usually not evenly distributed among all of his different psychological facets. One can be extremely smart in some ways and extremely incompetent in other ways. So some of the global elite might actually be extremely smart when it comes to a few key things and total morons in other ways.

If your theory is correct and the global elite really isn't significantly smarter than the average population then the next question is, how are they maintaining their spots against smarter competitors?

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#39

Post by mihaic » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

RamblingCTO wrote: post #31

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

or efficiency is more important because you have a high load of people you need to interact with. I was a grammer nazi back in the day but stopped caring because the ROI is minimal and I've got shit to do that's more important. so maybe it's the same for them

By your logic, you didn't put in much effort into your message. Besides not capitalizing the first letter of every sentence, everything else looks great though for me, and I'd imagine it was low effort for you. Those messages between billionaire read like the worst texts from low IQ teenagers.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#40

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 11, 2026, 4:39 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #15

I think a more likely reason, that for some reason, a lot of people don't want to talk about, is that these "Global Elite" aren't really that smart, creative, or articulate. That they've gotten to where they are despite, not because of their communication skills. They're not being "typical unconventional / quirky entrepreneurs." They're simply C students who knew the right people.

[deleted]