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Interesting rebuttal written by a HN reader when the original was published and made it to the front page in 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100309032112/http://blog.ethan...
There is however another very powerful aspect of the phrase: it suggests that something is not obvious. This makes it very powerful when correcting someone without making them feel like they said something stupid. "The sun is yellow" "You'd think that. But it turns out that without the atmosphere the sun is actually a blueish white, and high on the sky it's a neutral white"
Incidentally, just yesterday I learned the sun is “white”, because I was looking at why veins are bluish (despite low oxygen blood actually being just dark red) and looking into light scattering effects that are the cause.
Interesting rebuttal written by a HN reader when the original was published and made it to the front page in 2010: https://web.archive.org/web/20100309032112/http://blog.ethan...
I'd argue the most interesting part of this piece isn't what it says about Paul Graham, but rather the observation it makes about writing. I think about "It Turns Out" all the time, and it's virtually never because I'm in that moment caring about something Graham wrote.
* just: "Just rewrite it in Rust"
* simply: "To win at Jenga, simply remove one block from the bottom and put it on top."
* should: "We shouldn't have to wait"
I hate "should" the most because it can mean obligation, expectation, recommendation, or ideal. Any time you find yourself using "should", you should(I recommend) substitute something more specific
This is a nitpick, but since this essay is over 15 years old now I don't think the author will mind. This phrase always rankles me: > Let me explain what I mean. It turns out that if you're writing an essay or a youtube script you don't have to tell me that you're going to explain something to me before you explain it to me. I guess it acts as a "hack" to try to impart some gravity to what follows without actually ha…
Language is filled with those types of phrases, the one which bugs me once it was pointed out (even though I use it myself) is "to be honest...", which could carry the implication anything said without that qualifier may be dishonest. What including those phrases seem to come down to is an informal style, a bit more acceptable in a spoken conversation but for written it probably depends on the audience. Something I'd…
"To be honest" typically means "Here is an opinion that I'm embarrassed to share, and would rather lie about"
They're not lying about everything else, they're lying about that one thing, every other time.
e.g. "I tell people my favorite movie is 'The Godfather', but, to be honest, it's actually Ratatouille"