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

Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 316 posts

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#281

Post by bjackman »

quesera wrote: post #232
bjackman wrote: post #140

I see this at my $megagorp job. The top brass don't do that much written communication, but when they do they are absolutely shooting from the hip. It's not as bad as Epstein but it's a strong "I've already started reading the next email while I'm typing this one" vibes. FWIW I don't have a problem with it at all. As the article mentioned there's an aspect of power politics (I'm important enough not to have to worry…

> capitalisation is just unimportant Capitalization is the difference between: - helping your friend Jack off a horse, and - helping your friend jack off a horse. (Not original, but memorable!)

Contrived examples are fun but have nothing to do with the actual reasons people demand "correct" writing. These confusions do not happen in real life.

The reason people actually care is only ever to do with in-group signalling or power politics.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#282

Post by shawn_w »

bluepeter wrote: post #22

British aristocracy has been pronouncing their own surnames wrong for centuries on purpose. Cholmondeley is "Chumley" Featherstonehaugh is "Fanshaw." If you read it phonetically you mark yourself as an outsider. The misstake is the membership card. (Heck, even in Portland we locals hear about misprouncing Couch St probably every year in local press as some bar for membership to our own locals only vibe.)

Featherstonehaugh pronounced Fanshaw is apparently something made up by P.G. Wodehouse for one of his characters. It's just Featherston-haw for everyone in reality.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#283

Post by shawn_w »

philiplu wrote: post #223
toast0 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

augh is not as common as ough, but either one can make any sound in the whole syllabary. How about Sequim, WA. Guess how to pronounciate that.

Or Puyallup, WA. Those two are definite shibboleth tests in the PNW.

Des Moines, WA vs Des Moines, IA.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#284

Post by jpfromlondon »

dhosek wrote: post #222
jpfromlondon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is at least as guilty of mispronouncing non-english words it's just natural drift. As to fillet and valet, they joined english before the contemporary french pronunciation, and are much closer to the middle-french.

I’ve always said that one key difference between British English and American English is that a British speaker will intentionally mispronounce a foreign word, while an American will attempt to pronounce it correctly but get it wrong anyway.

It's much deeper than that probably because the kludge of english is in large part french.

But I also completely disagree, I don't think americans are attempting to pronounce croissant correctly for example, whereas brits will be much closer with no attempt at intentional mispronunciation, it just happens that brits are much closer on some and further on others, and vice versa re americans.

and I don't think there is any malice, in fact it became common among the british aspirational middle-class in the 70s to adopt french words in an attempt to appear cultured and upper, ironically now a clear marker of non-u.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#285

Post by jpfromlondon »

hnuser123456 wrote: post #90
jpfromlondon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is at least as guilty of mispronouncing non-english words it's just natural drift. As to fillet and valet, they joined english before the contemporary french pronunciation, and are much closer to the middle-french.

Apparently, workers on the Gemini space program pronounced it "Jeh-mih-nee" back then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gemini#Pronunciation

the soft g is triggering, I can hear my classics tutor yelling even 20+ years later, don't get me started on the american pronunciation of hegemony!

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#286

Post by jpfromlondon »

rkomorn wrote: post #91
jpfromlondon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America is at least as guilty of mispronouncing non-english words it's just natural drift. As to fillet and valet, they joined english before the contemporary french pronunciation, and are much closer to the middle-french.

I'm always amused by some mispronunciations that stray farther away from the original than necessary. My favorite is probably crepe, which Americans pronounce like an almost diphthong-y craype (or crape like grape I guess) when crep (like step) would do just fine and be closer to the original. But as a native French and basically-native American speaker, I also couldn't really care less about it, or about things like…

I notice the variance in british and american pronunciation of especially romance + greek words, correct or otherwise and I'm willing to give credit where it's due, I'm also happy to celebrate the differences rather than mock or correct them, I just won't accept the slander!

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#287

Post by davemp »

IshKebab wrote: post #105
davemp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton#Chesterton's_... Ignorance of why something exists is not a good enough reason to destroy it.

Yes... though I think Chesterton's fence definitely belongs in the "technically correct advice that actually does more harm than good" bucket, like "premature optimisation", "if it works don't fix it", the Unix philosophy and so on. This doesn't apply to capitalisation, but generally especially in computing if there's something that looks useless you should remove it. If it breaks the fault lies with whomever left so…

> The current project I'm working on has about 3 copies of every component because nobody bothers to clear up after themselves

In these cases you know the duplication and dead code is there because of sloppiness and Chesterton’s fence doesn’t apply.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#288

Post by drdec »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #225
drdec wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you aren't talking about the one in Massachusetts which is not pronounced either of those ways

No, im talking about this one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_(software)

But the link says it is named after Plymouth Rock which is indeed the Plymouth in Massachusetts

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#289

Post by frm88 »

andai wrote: post #159
radpanda wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see that as the same thing as what the article was pointing out. Those are shibboleths that only an insider would know. You have to get the pronunciation of Cholmondeley or Couch "right" to pass for an insider. The random misspellings, missing spaces, sloppy grammar, etc in the examples in the article seem different to me. Misspelling "en route" as "enriewu" doesn't show, "look, I know the secret count…

>It simply shows that you don't have to care about your mistakes. Interesting, is that the equivalent of billionaires wearing sweatpants?

Yes. It is also the equivalent of heads of states calling other persons dumb on camera. The absolute decomposition of respect and decorum.

Re: Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

#290

Post by gherkinnn »

gherkinnn wrote: post #279

As others have said, my money is on the banal. They're just morons. Successful morons, but morons non the less. The fact that neither you or I are part of the global elite isn't entirely due to a lack of merit, but a lack of luck and, quite possibly, a lack of psychopathy. Just the other day, or so I assume, one of them ran out of toilet paper and awkwardly shuffled towards a solution. We're all just apes.

The irony of replacing one coping mechanism (the elites are 4D chess players) with a different one (the elites are morons) is not lost in me.
Post reply on HN