Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation • Hacker News Board

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#41

Post by pothibo » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:15 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #38

pothibo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me shame you every time you introduce a bug/typo in your code.

Please do. Especially if I have "grammar matters" in big letters in those code headers and the code is about grammar.

Completely missing the point, Mr. Know-it-all.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#42

Post by laumars » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:16 PM UTC

pfortuny wrote: post #29

raverbashing wrote: post #12

"and included a handy link to the Oxford English Dictionaries definition page which described it’s usage" AHEM

Theirs always someone nitpicking...

I love your (presumably) deliberate grammar error given the context of this tangent.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#43

Post by DanBC » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:16 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #9

mperham wrote: post #6

Amazon wants to auto-hyphenate based on the current screen / font. Hardcoding hyphens in an ebook will look terrible in most cases. I don't see a problem with Amazon's stance.

I don't think that's what the author is talking about. They mean hyphenated words such as 'wind-up'. The current screen or font doesn't make a difference for whether or not that's hyphenated. You're thinking of hyphenation for splitting a word over a line.

That's what the author thinks the problem is, but we don't know because the book isn't available and there isn't a list of the hyphenated words.

It's possible that most of those hyphens are line-break hyphens, not word-join hyphens.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#44

Post by simi_ » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:17 PM UTC

lclarkmichalek wrote: post #40

simi_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Theirs always someone nitpicking... https://i.imgur.com/L2Rhc.png Based on my limited experience, people who think grammar Nazis are annoying shouldn't be suspected of being too intelligent.

They derail the conversation. Of course they're annoying..

I will never mind a "Hey, you misspelled «X»". I can agree "Ha, he misspelled «Y», he's such a complete moron" is annoying/disruptive, but I don't think the answer to assholes is to stop caring about basic grammar rules. Incidentally, as an outsider I've never seen people being as careless/clueless with their language as British/American people are. A result of the education system or society, maybe.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#45

Post by ctdonath » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:19 PM UTC

scrrr wrote: post #16

Off topic, but has it occurred to anyone that the overuse of the term 'war on x' might impair what the word 'war' really stands for?

Well, not long after the term started (Hoover), the US Congress ceased to "declare war" when proceeding to engage in what obviously is war. Now it's just "kinetic military action" or some such, never a statement of "the USA hereby declares war on ______ ...".

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#46

Post by vixen99 » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:20 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #17

When you have "grammar matters" in big fucking letters at the top of a blog you really need to proof read. > So, chuckling to myself, I sent back a response pointing out that the use of a hyphen to join two words together was perfectly valid in the English language and included a handy link to the Oxford English Dictionaries definition page which described it’s usage. POSSESSIVE ITS HAS NO APOSTROPHE. Normally I real…

Apostrophe use is not confusing. Its (and yours and ours) use is pretty straightforward (if you say 'it is use' to yourself, that is) unlike many computer languages with which many folk who read HN are extremely proficient since they make their living that way.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#47

Post by jgrahamc » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:20 PM UTC

So, I looked through the preview of the author's "High Moor" which is available on Amazon.co.uk and I see things like:

"One of them picked up what looked like a dog's hind-leg and put it in a white plastic bag."

"With the two-week Easter holiday just over a month away, ..."

"The woman's white hair was hidden by a red-head scarf, ..."

"The door of one of the expensive motor-homes opened ..."

Seems to me Amazon may have a point about some of his use of hyphens.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#48

Post by logn » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:20 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #17

When you have "grammar matters" in big fucking letters at the top of a blog you really need to proof read. > So, chuckling to myself, I sent back a response pointing out that the use of a hyphen to join two words together was perfectly valid in the English language and included a handy link to the Oxford English Dictionaries definition page which described it’s usage. POSSESSIVE ITS HAS NO APOSTROPHE. Normally I real…

The grammar mistake in the author's sentence does not matter as much as the "grammar matters" example. And there's a difference between errors and ignorance. If you type fast it's easy to not fully think through all grammar rules before the words are already typed and done. I think the author is worried that blind automation could be harming the beauty of the written word. It would be like iTunes complaining that Blues artists are using too many off-key flat notes (and they say, no, those are blue notes!). Clearly from the article, hyphens are part of this author's colorful use of language.

Obligatory: http://xkcd.com/37/

(edited for grammar :)

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#49

Post by mathieuh » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:22 PM UTC

simi_ wrote: post #37

pfortuny wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theirs always someone nitpicking...

> Theirs always someone nitpicking... https://i.imgur.com/L2Rhc.png Based on my limited experience, people who think grammar Nazis are annoying shouldn't be suspected of being too intelligent.

Language is about communicating ideas, I couldn't care less if someone leaves out that arcane little tick or uses the wrong pronoun. In 99% of cases it makes no difference to comprehensibility.

Re: Hyphen Hate? When Amazon went to war against punctuation

#50

Post by DanBC » Mon, Dec 15, 2014, 3:24 PM UTC

pothibo wrote: post #41

DanBC wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do. Especially if I have "grammar matters" in big letters in those code headers and the code is about grammar.

Completely missing the point, Mr. Know-it-all.

Weird that you call me Mr Know it all when i have already said that my grammar is terrible.

You're missing the point - when a person is complaining about other people's misuse of grammar, and does so on a webpage that has "grammar matters" in big letters at the top, they really need to make sure that their grammar is not blatantly incorrect. Obvious errors discredit the point they're trying to make.