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Three areas which every start-up should focus their attention on

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Re: Three areas which every start-up should focus their attention on

#15
post #10

One question for HN moderators: Is flag the same as downvote ? For example, I think this is useless PR stuff, not interesting in any manner. So should I flag it like I would downvote a comment? Or flag is mostly for more harmful things suchs as spammy or innacurate posts; and I should just hope less people upvote it and its buried?

You should flag a story if you think it's off-topic for HN, i.e. you think it shouldn't be here. Since useless PR stuff shouldn't be here, that's definitely a legit reason to flag a story.

Re: Three areas which every start-up should focus their attention on

#16
post #9

Area number one: not ending headlines with prepositions.

That "don't end sentences with a preposition" thing hasn't been a widely accepted rule of English for decades now. Why are you fighting a hopeless battle?

And Churchill didn't even say the funniest line about it.

Re: Three areas which every start-up should focus their attention on

#17
post #12
post #9

Area number one: not ending headlines with prepositions.

Why not? (serious question from a non-native english speaker)

There's a decent discussion here with a variety of perspectives:

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/16/when-is-it-app...

Re: Three areas which every start-up should focus their attention on

#18
post #12
post #9

Area number one: not ending headlines with prepositions.

Why not? (serious question from a non-native english speaker)

The Latinate syntactical construction norms that moved over to English included, among many others, one around prepositions (from the Latin prae, meaning before) being placed before the object with which it is linked, never after.

It certainly isn't a rule, per se; and ending a sentence with a preposition is not wrong. But it is stylistically less desirable.

Dryden hated that Ben Jonson occasionally ended sentences with prepositions. He gave the norm added power and it has lasted, since his 1672 criticism, another 250 years. Dryden never said that ending a sentence with a preposition was wrong, only that it was ugly.

(Incidentally, Winston Churchill never said that this was a grammar rule "up with which I will not put." See: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001715.h...)

Re: Three areas which every start-up should focus their attention on

#20
post #15
post #10

One question for HN moderators: Is flag the same as downvote ? For example, I think this is useless PR stuff, not interesting in any manner. So should I flag it like I would downvote a comment? Or flag is mostly for more harmful things suchs as spammy or innacurate posts; and I should just hope less people upvote it and its buried?

You should flag a story if you think it's off-topic for HN, i.e. you think it shouldn't be here. Since useless PR stuff shouldn't be here, that's definitely a legit reason to flag a story.

thanks!
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