Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Just don’t

tbray.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 464 posts

Re: Just don’t

#11

Post by MajimasEyepatch »

pornel wrote: post #6

Related: if someone has a chronic condition, don't drop on them unsolicited medical advice, especially things like "have you tried yoga?", "you just need more sunshine", "you must try my cousin's healing tea!". You're not their doctor, and they haven't shared all the medical details with you. Your 3-second diagnosis is almost certainly terrible. They've heard it a dozen times already, and it's difficult and tiring to…

Or to an overweight person: "you know you'd be a lot healthier if you just lost weight" or "why don't you get a gym membership" or "it's just calories in minus calories out, bro"? Gee, thanks, you're the first person ever to tell me that I should lose weight and it's just a matter of diet and exercise, like every fat person on the planet doesn't already know. It's like saying to a smoker, "You know that's bad for you. You should quit." That sort of comment is almost entirely self-serving.

Re: Just don’t

#12

Post by andsoitis »

pornel wrote: post #6

Related: if someone has a chronic condition, don't drop on them unsolicited medical advice, especially things like "have you tried yoga?", "you just need more sunshine", "you must try my cousin's healing tea!". You're not their doctor, and they haven't shared all the medical details with you. Your 3-second diagnosis is almost certainly terrible. They've heard it a dozen times already, and it's difficult and tiring to…

what if they complain about it chronically? are you then justified to offer unsolicited advice, or do you have to just listen (i.e. be their outlet)?

Re: Just don’t

#13

Post by b112 »

pornel wrote: post #6

Related: if someone has a chronic condition, don't drop on them unsolicited medical advice, especially things like "have you tried yoga?", "you just need more sunshine", "you must try my cousin's healing tea!". You're not their doctor, and they haven't shared all the medical details with you. Your 3-second diagnosis is almost certainly terrible. They've heard it a dozen times already, and it's difficult and tiring to…

you must try my cousin's healing tea!".

"Healing tear"?! Is it a specific tear, or all of them?

Such as, cousin watched a beautiful sunrise, on the same day as seeing a baby being born, while discovering donuts are actually good for you.

That tear, that tear of joy, was saved, and here's a microgram of it, try it, it heals!

(Don't read HN before the focus of coffee, lest this)

Re: Just don’t

#14

Post by readthenotes1 »

We just can't address the instability/fragility of correspondents with one-off word play.

Neuroticism, which we all have, is the most important personality/communication style factor and it's the one that the HR approved courses rigorously ignore...

Re: Just don’t

#16

Post by ISL »

I like to use the word "just", but find that it frequently makes my writing worse.

Furthermore, I find that it is often easy to write a sentence that contains the word in order to get a thought out of my head and then simply remove the word.

Just give it a try someday... ;).

Re: Just don’t

#17

Post by actionablefiber »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #7

I get a lot more mileage out of "have you tried..." than "why don't you just...". As a recent example, I wrote a system that auto-generates PDF packing slips from an order form, to send to a warehouse for picking and packing. Yesterday a client told me to "just make it landscape" while I was explaining why "just making it landscape" won't solve the problem of giving the warehouse whitespace to pencil stuff in, becaus…

I go with "my first impulse is to suggest..." which IMO adds the diplomatic nuance of admitting an incomplete understanding of the problem and/or the person experiencing the problem. You either get a "good suggestion, I'll try that" as a response or you get "you might think it's a good idea but I already considered it and XYZ problems occurred" and you can work from there.

Re: Just don’t

#18

Post by ISL »

wodenokoto wrote: post #4

I really wish there was a version of "just" and "only", that has the connotation of there is one and only one thing, but not the connotation of that being trivial. Something that expresses "there is 1 thing and that makes it a big deal!"

"Precisely one" may cover many of the relevant situations.

Re: Just don’t

#19

Post by XCSme »

wodenokoto wrote: post #4

I really wish there was a version of "just" and "only", that has the connotation of there is one and only one thing, but not the connotation of that being trivial. Something that expresses "there is 1 thing and that makes it a big deal!"

"Just do the dishes."

"It is sufficient to do the dishes."

?

Re: Just don’t

#20

Post by geerlingguy »

ISL wrote: post #16

I like to use the word "just", but find that it frequently makes my writing worse. Furthermore, I find that it is often easy to write a sentence that contains the word in order to get a thought out of my head and then simply remove the word. Just give it a try someday... ;).

Now you can remove the simply too ;)
Post reply on HN