This is a bit in the same direction as Epstein’s horrible tech higiene- using computers with outdated software, little or no cryptography, and so on. Another person summarised it quite well: “too rich to care”.
Privilege is bad grammar
141–150 of 292 posts
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#142Many people point to the bad spelling and grammar of these powerful, abusive people and they say wow, that's a flex.
My own reaction is more like these people are stupid. It's not power that makes them write poorly. They're not capable of getting it right.
Look at what Noam Chomsky wrote to Epstein as a contrast. Multiple paragraphs and usually coherent. He makes Epstein look dumb. (Which he was.) I don't support what and to whom Chomsky was writing, but he is better at writing.
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#143It’s because the higher you are in the chain of corporate command, the less time you have to dedicate to each task. You end up with shorter answers to every note because you wouldn’t have time to reply to all notes and do the strategic things you need to do, otherwise. As an individual contributor on a team, you may have to interface at most with 30 people on a weekly basis. As a second line leader you may have 150 p…
Using the example from the article: "K let circle back nxt week bout it . thnks" I'm not buying your argument. The amount of additional time that it would have taken to write that same message with proper grammar and spelling is minuscule.
The boss was following Strunk & White's advice to omit needless letters.
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#144This is almost textbook countersignalling. The same as: - Signalling: I dress more formally than everyone else to make up for the fact I'm less professional in other ways - No signalling: I dress like everyone else because I am like everyone else - Countersignalling: I wear ratty old clothes with holes in them, and nobody will dare to question it because I'm the important one here
On the positive side of this, research papers by competent people read very clearly with readable sentences, while those who are afraid that their content doesn't quite cut it, litter it with jargon, long complicated sentences, hoping that by making things hard, they will look smart. But to expand on the spelling topic, good spelling and grammar is now free with AI tools. It no longer signals being educated. Informal…
Muddying the water to make it seem deep.
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#145*poor
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what's taught in a lot of linguistics and language classes now: rules of spelling and grammar are power games designed to perpetuate one culture while repressing others, rather than tools for clarifying thought. It's fallout from the postmodern search for power dynamics in all things. A friend recently brought up Orwell's essay on "Politics and the English Language" [0] and the Merriam Webster's Word Matters P…
The hardcore anti-prescriptivism among linguists does drive me a bit nuts as well. Languages can and do alter because of peoples prescriptivist ideas. They're not just arbitrary rivers of sound changes that people cannot control. English is still full of Inkwell terms, for example. And in my own lifetime I have seen a lot of linguistic changes basically proscribed that everyone falls into line with (a less controvers…
> Languages can and do alter because of peoples prescriptivist ideas.
You are right, but that comes also from a descriptivist perspective. And a linguist would study what sort of prescriptions stick and what sort don't.
When linguists say they aren't prescriptivists, they don't say prescriptivism doesn't work, they just say their job is not about deciding whether to say football or soccer.
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#147I latch on to some of these trends by lowercasing everything, in this case I mostly just don’t correct it if I missed a case
its more like insulation, the people that criticize it seem less connected and less compensated than me while understanding exactly what was conveyed, and the people like me are the same
like “look at this try hard middle manager that doesn’t focus on anything relevant”
one thing I do consciously correct is punctuation, I remove periods after consciously typing them, since an entire generation of people considers it a harsh statement, while the lack of period doesn’t confuse anyone else
language exists to convey a shared concept
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#148Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#149It’s because the higher you are in the chain of corporate command, the less time you have to dedicate to each task. You end up with shorter answers to every note because you wouldn’t have time to reply to all notes and do the strategic things you need to do, otherwise. As an individual contributor on a team, you may have to interface at most with 30 people on a weekly basis. As a second line leader you may have 150 p…
Using the example from the article: "K let circle back nxt week bout it . thnks" I'm not buying your argument. The amount of additional time that it would have taken to write that same message with proper grammar and spelling is minuscule.
typed on a phone, so unlikely to have been at the office.
Re: Privilege is bad grammar
#150This is so yawn. Do young professionals starting out have to impress their bosses? Yes. Do bosses have to impress them? Usually not. Who cares? Power dynamics exist, it’s easy to play the grammar game, so just do it and stop pretending it’s some form of oppression.
TBH, a junior dev pointed at an urgent issue who replies simply, “on it” vs. one who takes the time to write a short book report on their initial analysis and plans is—all else being equal—not a close call when it comes to promotion time.
I don’t want to be impressed, I want problems to be solved.