Reading Is Magic • Hacker News Board

Re: Reading Is Magic

#31

Post by d0liver » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 3:01 PM UTC

tripdout wrote: post #26

torben-friis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as” clued me in, but I don’t get this part. "Imagine everything here was flooded and then the water leaves. The land would be left super muddy right? That's how much mud there is now". I'm surprised it's a difficult phrase, I'm not even a native speaker. The part with the stegosaurus is harder in that it relies…

I guess I could see that, but if all the water left, it could be dry like a desert too.. (although even though that was my initial interpretation, I did understand that's not what he meant) And yes even without the reference it's not that there's a literal animal there.

> if all the water left, it could be dry like a desert too

This is just a contextual interpretation thing. It's clear that's not what he means because he says it's muddy, so it must be the other thing. Also, it becoming a desert is more extreme, so in that case the writer would probably offer up a more detailed explanation.

Re: Reading Is Magic

#32

Post by snayan » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 3:22 PM UTC

luxuryballs wrote: post #23

why are kids not reading? is this not very alarming? my oldest is 7 and reads every day, she has finished and re-read various 100-200ish page books, I remember being her age and getting lost in the pages of a good story, it’s def more than just sad to imagine a kid missing out on this

If I had to guess it's because most kids have ipads/youtube/other dopamine machines given to them to keep busy from a ridiculously young age. By the time they're seven, they're addicted to easy dopamine. Reading a book just doesn't give them the hit they crave.

Re: Reading Is Magic

#33

Post by d0liver » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 3:27 PM UTC

torben-friis wrote: post #21

tripdout wrote: post #9

I actually don’t understand the meaning of that sentence in Dickens fully either. > As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as”…

>Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as” clued me in, but I don’t get this part. "Imagine everything here was flooded and then the water leaves. The land would be left super muddy right? That's how much mud there is now". I'm surprised it's a difficult phrase, I'm not even a native speaker. The part with the stegosaurus is harder in that it relies…

It's clear that the article is mostly talking about the reader's ability to interpret figuratively, regardless of the specific reference. However, I'm not even sure it's a biblical reference, because I think dinosaurs are generally incompatible with the story of Noah's Arc. I'm guessing it's probably more along the lines of some theory of continental movement that was prevalent at the time. Maybe it's just a weird mismash of dinosaurs and Noah's Arc, though?

Re: Reading Is Magic

#34

Post by d0liver » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 3:31 PM UTC

d0liver wrote: post #33

torben-friis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why does “as if the waters had but newly retired” mean there’s a lot of water (and thus mud)? “As much mud as” clued me in, but I don’t get this part. "Imagine everything here was flooded and then the water leaves. The land would be left super muddy right? That's how much mud there is now". I'm surprised it's a difficult phrase, I'm not even a native speaker. The part with the stegosaurus is harder in that it relies…

It's clear that the article is mostly talking about the reader's ability to interpret figuratively, regardless of the specific reference. However, I'm not even sure it's a biblical reference, because I think dinosaurs are generally incompatible with the story of Noah's Arc. I'm guessing it's probably more along the lines of some theory of continental movement that was prevalent at the time. Maybe it's just a weird mi…

"If you travelled back in time, the coastline itself would be unrecognisable to modern eyes. In the Jurassic Period, most of what later became Britain was under the sea, apart from Scotland, East Anglia and a series of small islands in the southwest."

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/life-in-jurassic-oceans.html

Re: Reading Is Magic

#35

Post by schaefer » Mon, Apr 13, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

This article is a horrific bait and switch. The title is "Reading is Magic", but towards the end the tone is literally:

> … all struggles will be powered by outright sexual sadism.

If that’s where we’re heading, how about a different title and at least a little heads up in the introduction?

Personally, I wouldn’t have wasted my time.