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“I just chose words carefully”

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Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#221

Post by slazaro »

seszett wrote: post #169
Kootle wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Japan they have the abbreviation “NG” (“not good”) that’s often used as the opposite of “OK”. I always liked how, when I worked for a Japanese machine learning company, classifiers would be between “OK” and “NG”. Maybe semantically “okay” and “not good” are not great opposites, but I always liked how having textual alignment makes the contrast immediately obvious

It's not unusual in France to use OK and KO. I never liked it much because it's too easy to confuse and no semantically a good opposite either, but visually it does look very balanced.

I've seen it a lot in Spain as well. I guess it's a combination of just being the reverse of OK, and also "KO" meaning "knocked out" just feels like the opposite of OK.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#222

Post by InfiniteRand »

unicorn_platfor wrote: post #175

I like the idea that arbitrary constraints can actually improve writing. Without a constraint, it's easy to fall back on familiar phrasing, while having to work around something unusual forces you to reconsider each word. I wonder if this applies to programming and other creative work too.

This is what I think about grammar. Yes, it’s a little arbitrary but it makes you think a little more about your writing. That’s why I try to use correct grammar in text messages. I don’t push this on anyone because most people don’t like to think about word choice, but I am a writer at heart. Still I have to bite my tongue every time someone sends me a text message “hi am here”

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#224

Post by [deleted] »

lproven wrote: post #216
lproven wrote: post #214

4 leading spaces, is that right? Let's see... I used to write all my online posts like this in my early days of having own personal email address. My primary email is from 1991 and I used it, and DOS-based tools, to go online from 1991 until the late 1990s. At 1st I ran DOS tools from a floppy, then on my own PC with OS/2 2, then under Win95, then under NT 4. Gradually all the tools that were current at the time beca…

Heh. It worked. Maybe I should start writing all my HN responses like this. :-) In the early '90s I occasionally wrote circular messages, and once, I recall spending a good chunk of an hour composing one in the shape of a Christmas-tree: stacked triangles, gradually getting wider from the top to the bottom of the "tree". One letter wide at the very tip, and then 2 at the top of the next triangle. The bottom of each t…

[deleted]

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#225

Post by bregma »

unicorn_platfor wrote: post #175

I like the idea that arbitrary constraints can actually improve writing. Without a constraint, it's easy to fall back on familiar phrasing, while having to work around something unusual forces you to reconsider each word. I wonder if this applies to programming and other creative work too.

In other words you could say constraint is the progenitor of creativity.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#226

Post by amiga386 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #174
likis wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the rules were clear and it depends on how the word is pronounced, with a vowel or consonant sound. I have only heard people say H T T P, as specific letters when pronouncing HTTP, and thus the a or an should be based on how one would pronounce the letter "H". And H would be pronounced as "aitch". Starts with an a -> vowel sound -> should be "an". But I'm a non native english speaker, so I'm happy to be pro…

Some UK speakers pronounce "H" as "haitch" (with a non-silent leading 'h'), not "aitch". Which leads to "a haitch tee ...". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H#Name

Specifically, upper-class Brits pronounce the "h". See this classic Monty Python sketch which makes fun of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnq96W9jtuw&t=66s

    Praline: 'Ello. I would like to buy a fish license, please.

    Clerk: A what?

    Praline: A license for my pet fish, Eric.

    Clerk: How did you know my name was Eric?

    Praline: No, no, no, no. My _fish's_ name is Eric. Eric the fish. 'E's an 'alibut.

    Clerk: What?

    Praline (in upper-class accent): He is an halibut.
There was a lot of discourse about the (then declining) aristocracy and their mannerisms, accents and so on, in the 1950s and 1960s. In particular, discussion of "U" (upper class) versus "non-U" English, highlighting the differences in language usage between classes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

The Pythons were highly attuned to this class distinction and wrote it into their sketches. Another good sketch is an upper-class family distinguishing "woody" and "tinny" sounds, but the whole sketch's premise is to laugh at the odd mannerisms of the upper-classes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3-51DhOzHE

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#227

Post by bhaak » 

    I am somewhat surprised not seeing any mentioning of hanging punctuation
    when doing the full alignment to the right side. As everybody can see in
    the article, punctutation marks on the right side results in uneven text.
    Putting non letter symbols one space further to the right than the other
    letters, it looks much better. Of course for monospaced text it is still
    just a gimmick. But a visually pleasing gimmick.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging_punctuation

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#229

Post by [deleted] »

urams wrote: post #104
chrisfosterelli wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect LLMs would actually struggle significantly with doing it consistently if given purely as a prompt instruction, but you could always constrict the sampling to force words that create a legitimate chain or fine tune / RL in some signal that would assist with it.

You are right that this is hard from a prompt alone, but for a slightly stranger reason than the obvious one. The model never sees columns. It sees tokens, and a token can be one character or nine, so "make this line 80 wide" asks it to run a hidden tally over pieces it cannot count by looking at them. Any slip early in a line compounds, and there is no backspace key to reach for once it is committed. That said, the…

[deleted]

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#230

Post by amiga386 »

amiga386 wrote: post #226
JoshTriplett wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some UK speakers pronounce "H" as "haitch" (with a non-silent leading 'h'), not "aitch". Which leads to "a haitch tee ...". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H#Name

Specifically, upper-class Brits pronounce the "h". See this classic Monty Python sketch which makes fun of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnq96W9jtuw&t=66s Praline: 'Ello. I would like to buy a fish license, please. Clerk: A what? Praline: A license for my pet fish, Eric. Clerk: How did you know my name was Eric? Praline: No, no, no, no. My _fish's_ name is Eric. Eric the fish. 'E's an 'alibut. Clerk: What? Pral…

Perhaps the most succinct explanation of British class difference is the famous Frost Report sketch featuring John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_sketch

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00hhrwl

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