“I just chose words carefully” • Hacker News Board

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#281

Post by enneff » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:03 PM UTC

InfiniteRand wrote: post #222

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”

Have you considered that by adhering to the arbitrary rules of grammar you are forgoing a realm of poetic opportunity?

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#282

Post by benji-york » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:04 PM UTC

The maintainer of top fully-justifies his commit messages, e.g., https://gitlab.com/procps-ng/procps/-/commit/e6f22569e9db16d...

commit e6f22569e9db16dbef7d9bdee5bb41b8cb7a03ca

Author: Jim Warner

Date: Tue Jul 23 00:00:00 2024 -0500

    top: attempt once again to allow help text translation
    
    Back when our release 4.0.1 was being readied, sources
    were sent to the TP (Translation Project). However one
    person named Benno Schulenberg refused to release them
    for translation. His stated reason was the top command
    line help text which then finally included long forms.
    
    He demanded that the help text be broken into separate
    strings instead of a single large string. But, all the
    top text (some much more complex) has just one string.
    So that stated reason was, at the least, inconsistent.
    
    [ I suspect the real reason was that Mr. Schulenberg ]
    [ thought that the carefully right-justified English ]
    [ wording would also be required of translations too ]
    
    The bottom line was that Benno took it upon himself to
    change the TP motto from "you code, we translate" into
    "first we tell you how to code and then we translate".
    
    Rather than bend a knee to that despot, I disabled the
    text entirely, admittedly denying users a translation.
    Now, with this commit we enable translatable help text
    but with a hint included to ignore the justified text.
    
    Reference)s):
    . Oct, 2022 - finalized translation exclusion
    commit ab05a3785f29cc4b754e17c53bfb3d8ba054563e
    
    Signed-off-by: Jim Warner

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#283

Post by andyclap2 » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:04 PM UTC

pmontra wrote: post #131

AgentOrange1234 wrote: post #109

In programming certain word choices are valuable in this way. It's sad that pairs like true/false, good/bad, first/rest, and left/right are unequal length. But there are nice pairs like old/new, head/tail, fast/slow, same/diff, and right/wrong, which can help with create natural vertical alignment throughout a function.

Ah, but I use a normal proportional font in my editor so same and diff have different widths. That was the fun comment. The serious ones: 1. I'm trading the ability to align statements on consecutive lines for a more pleasant reading experience. 2. Nobody ever complained that my source code is a = 1 ab = 2 abc = 3 instead of a = 1 ab = 2 abc = 3 3. No tables or diagrams in comments of course but I think that I could…

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one - I loved using proportional fonts. I find my ability to scan words is much faster than with monospaced, and I navigate semantically and prefer automated refactors so that I never really felt the need for multi-cursor editing or aligned blocks.

All that came to an end when I worked on a project using F#. It just doesn't work with meaningful whitespace. In the current world, with the prevalence of python, I can't really go back unfortunately. Maybe indenting with tabs is the way after all...

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#284

Post by underlipton » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:09 PM UTC

JoshTriplett wrote: post #173

Biganon wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny tidbit: "missile" used to be an adjective, "a missile weapon" = "a weapon than can be sent/thrown". Same with cereals, "cereal" was an adjective that meant "relative to the goddess Ceres" then "relative to bread/wheat". "Cereal plants" -> cereals. It's called "nominalization (or substantivization) by ellipsis".

> Funny tidbit: "missile" used to be an adjective, "a missile weapon" = "a weapon than can be sent/thrown". Related bit of comedy: > Note also that the correct term for 'a missile to be deployed against "anti-missile missiles"' is not "anti anti-missile missile." It's "anti anti-missile-missile missile." You're always supposed to have one more "missile" than "anti," because otherwise nothing will blow up. -- https://…

I wonder how often *teleports behind you* shows up in space operas.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#285

Post by stellamariesays » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

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…

[flagged]

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#286

Post by everdrive » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

jagged-chisel wrote: post #242

lproven wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

No, please. It doesn’t wrap correctly on narrow mobile screens.

Using the internet on a mobile phone is not advised.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#287

Post by nasso_dev » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:16 PM UTC

hiccuphippo wrote: post #267

pmontra wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, but I use a normal proportional font in my editor so same and diff have different widths. That was the fun comment. The serious ones: 1. I'm trading the ability to align statements on consecutive lines for a more pleasant reading experience. 2. Nobody ever complained that my source code is a = 1 ab = 2 abc = 3 instead of a = 1 ab = 2 abc = 3 3. No tables or diagrams in comments of course but I think that I could…

Code editors should do this visually without adding actual space characters to the file.

why not go even further?

store the source minified without any extraneous whitespace and let the editor display a properly indented view in your preferred style...

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#288

Post by thesuitonym » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #86

jimmydddd wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I few years ago I saw a TV interview where some gen-z kid confidently stated: "the dictdionary is supposed to reflect how I talk, not the other was around."

That's actually how many of the dictionary people see themselves.

    Most dictionaries are descriptivist, and
    that's why they frequently have multiple
    spellings of words. It's because of your
    teachers, style guides & internet trolls
    that anyone says the dictionary spelling
    is the only correct spelling.

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#289

Post by boomlinde » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:19 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #125

saghm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd argue that "le" is not really phonetic to how people pronounce words ending in that; "missils" would be more phonetic

> I'd argue that "le" is not really phonetic to how people pronounce words ending in that Sorry? How do you think people pronounce words such as truffle / turtle / tremble / pickle / maple / rubble / etc. etc. etc.?

Conversations like this are a dead end. You can't devise a phonetic spelling convention without using a phonetic alphabet. The reason you think that "le" makes sense and the person you are responding to thinks otherwise is that in English, the pronunciation of "le" isn't phonetically consistent.

I imagine that GP's reasoning is that in writing "missile", the consonant is followed by a vowel, while phonetically the vowel is followed by a consonant.

The issue is further compounded by the fact that there's more than one common pronunciation of "missile".

Re: “I just chose words carefully”

#290

Post by davedx » Mon, Aug 31, 2026, 2:21 PM UTC

It's just a shame we still don't have the computer for the PITS, isn't it?

I guess the closest thing we have is an iPad - my mother can just about use tablets, but I have to say onboarding onto a tablet these days is full of gotchas and fraught with peril too if you don't understand computing.

I'm reminded of "The Dream Machine" by Licklider - if we read that today, we'd get this odd sense of having come very close, but yet missing by miles, many of the goals set back then.

Anyway, yes, monospace typesetting...