4 ms·

School's Out, Forever. "School is out" contracts to "School's out", with an apostrophe to indicate the contraction. I could not bring myself to read an article

School's Out, Forever. "School is out" contracts to "School's out", with an apostrophe to indicate the contraction. I could not bring myself to read an article about education being pointless that has a grammatical mistake in the title, no less. If you make that mistake while slagging on education, I simply cannot give your opinions any weight.

mmt 17y ago
Your response illustrates an all too common failure of formal education: holding formalities in greater regard than practical matters. Language is usage is language. Not only was clarity not hurt, the point of the title I took away was a reference to the Alice Cooper song lyric, which as spoken (sung) language, contains no apostrophe.
- youngian 17y ago
  I disagree. Clarity was hurt. This title suggests multiple schools "out", which doesn't make a lot of sense (did the schools band together to out their gay friend? Or a corrupt politician?). Yes, obviously I can figure out what he meant. But there's a jarring half-second of confusion that disrupts my thinking, slows down my reading, and distracts me from what is being communicated. I'm not rabid about grammar - the rules should be a bit malleable, depending on context. But most grammar exists so that we can understand each other. If you have poor grammar, I will have a harder time understanding you and we will have a harder time working together. In fact, I will be less likely to want to talk to you, because I could instead be talking to people with good grammar, and when I talk to them I don't have to pause for those cognitive potholes where I have to puzzle out what they're trying to say.
  - mmt 17y ago
    But there's a jarring half-second of confusion that disrupts my thinking, slows down my reading, and distracts me from what is being communicated. I would suggest that it's your literalism (or, perhaps, if not grammar rabies, then at least excessive focus on it) that's the issue here, not the presence or absence of a punctuation mark in a transliteration of a song lyric. The author may be guilty of not being conservative in what he sends, but your guilt, in not being liberal in what you accept, is, to me, much clearer.
- neilc 17y ago
  the point of the title I took away was a reference to the Alice Cooper song lyric, which as spoken (sung) language, contains no apostrophe. The title of the Alice Cooper song absolutely contains an apostrophe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_Out_(song) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_Out_(song)
  - mmt 17y ago
    .. and yet your link doesnt [sic].
    - neilc 17y ago
      That is apparently due to a HN bug which strips single quotes from links. The WP article has an apostrophe in the title; the HN-modified link loses the apostrophe, and is broken.
      - mmt 17y ago
        A broken link seems, to me, to be far more jarring than omitting the apostrophe entirely. Incidentally, I doubt it's a bug in HN, merely a lack of feature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School%27s_Out_%28song%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School%27s_Out_%28song%29

mmt 17y ago

Your response illustrates an all too common failure of formal education: holding formalities in greater regard than practical matters. Language is usage is language. Not only was clarity not hurt, the point of the title I took away was a reference to the Alice Cooper song lyric, which as spoken (sung) language, contains no apostrophe.

youngian 17y ago
I disagree. Clarity was hurt. This title suggests multiple schools "out", which doesn't make a lot of sense (did the schools band together to out their gay friend? Or a corrupt politician?). Yes, obviously I can figure out what he meant. But there's a jarring half-second of confusion that disrupts my thinking, slows down my reading, and distracts me from what is being communicated. I'm not rabid about grammar - the rules should be a bit malleable, depending on context. But most grammar exists so that we can understand each other. If you have poor grammar, I will have a harder time understanding you and we will have a harder time working together. In fact, I will be less likely to want to talk to you, because I could instead be talking to people with good grammar, and when I talk to them I don't have to pause for those cognitive potholes where I have to puzzle out what they're trying to say.
- mmt 17y ago
  But there's a jarring half-second of confusion that disrupts my thinking, slows down my reading, and distracts me from what is being communicated. I would suggest that it's your literalism (or, perhaps, if not grammar rabies, then at least excessive focus on it) that's the issue here, not the presence or absence of a punctuation mark in a transliteration of a song lyric. The author may be guilty of not being conservative in what he sends, but your guilt, in not being liberal in what you accept, is, to me, much clearer.
neilc 17y ago
the point of the title I took away was a reference to the Alice Cooper song lyric, which as spoken (sung) language, contains no apostrophe. The title of the Alice Cooper song absolutely contains an apostrophe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_Out_(song) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_Out_(song)
- mmt 17y ago
  .. and yet your link doesnt [sic].
  - neilc 17y ago
    That is apparently due to a HN bug which strips single quotes from links. The WP article has an apostrophe in the title; the HN-modified link loses the apostrophe, and is broken.
    - mmt 17y ago
      A broken link seems, to me, to be far more jarring than omitting the apostrophe entirely. Incidentally, I doubt it's a bug in HN, merely a lack of feature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School%27s_Out_%28song%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School%27s_Out_%28song%29