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swombat, everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. I'm an Indian, one who has lived in Bangalore for the past 6 years. I made a conscious choice of not work

by jagtesh 17y ago

swombat, everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. I'm an Indian, one who has lived in Bangalore for the past 6 years. I made a conscious choice of not working for an outsourcing outfit and instead plunged into the unknown realms of entrepreneurship. But I was lucky. I'm young with no dependents. No additional responsibilities other than taking care of myself. It's OKAY for me to get my hands burnt, because I know I'll survive to fight another day. On the other hand, many of my peers have their parents and siblings to take care of. Not to mention their own family if they're married. It's a big risk in India to lose a job and there are lesser financial instruments to aid the people (it's impossible to get a credit card without a job and the govt. doesn't pay anything to the employed, rather it _can't_). Once you've lived under these circumstances, it's understandable to see a person who wants to work in a field they enjoy while having a sense of job security. Maybe because they have 10 years of experience in their fields, (which would pay them significantly more than Rs.350,000, esp. in _Bangalore_), a chunk of which goes into settling their EMIs. In such a case, jumping to a new field won't earn them as much while it could leave them stranded (there's little or no demand for non-Java/Oracle/BI Suite/.NET specialists here). While I hope this give's a better insight into a Bangalore office worker's way of thinking, I do agree with your suggestions.

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
This is a pet peeve of mine, and my apologies if it feels inappropriate. I also recognise that, given your post, you are likely not be a native English speaker. If that's the case, please accept this as intended to help you improve your already excellent English. However: > ... everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. The opposite of "Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" is "Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" which is (logically although not in emphasis) equivalent to "Some people don't want to be entrepreneurs." To say "everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur" means that there are no people in the world who want to be entrepreneurs, which is clearly false, because some people do. Again, apologies, but this is a common mistake, and it's really worth being able to recognise it when you see it, and to be able to avoid it. Sometimes it's worth recognising it and ignoring it. Apologies if this was one of those occasions.
- iuguy 17y ago
  I see what you're trying to do, to help the parent with American/British English, but actually the language the parent is writing in is a typical idiom found in Indian English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English). English is the official second language of India (which doesn't mean an awful lot but consider that Hindi in Devanagari is the main language and is only spoken by just over 40% of Indians) and is generally spoken with Indian idioms. It's been this way for several hundred years. Indian English is generally as valid as American English, although less formalised.
  - RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
    I appreciate your comments, and I agree with some of what you say. Idiomatic language is not always literal language. In America, for example, people often say "The proof is in the pudding." Logically this does not make sense. Logically the original saying - "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" - makes sense, and can be interpreted literally. But idioms are atomic. They cannot be understood in any way other than as a complete whole with a meaning unextractable from the components. But idiomatic language can lead to non-understanding, and sometimes mis-understanding. Recognising it when it occurs can be important, especially when what is said can be interpreted literally and logically in a manner other than intended. My intent is not to prevent idiomatic usage of language, that would be Sisyphean. My intent to to highlight a case where was was said, when interpreted logically, is not what was intended.
    - losvedir 17y ago
      >My intent is to highlight a case where what was said, when interpreted logically, is not what was intended. I disagree that "interpreted logically" the statement is not what was intended. It just depends how you interpret the word "everyone". Is it a single representative object which takes on the combined characteristics of all the people it represents? Or is it a stand-in for comparing each and every person that it represents? You're saying it must be the latter. If you're talking about person A, person B, and person C, then "everyone" is short hand for comparing against each one. So, "Is everyone tall?" means "Is A tall?" AND "Is B tall?" AND "Is C tall?" However, that isn't the only valid way it's used. "Everyone" could be its own object, so you don't need to check against each of the underlying ones. And it only has a certain characteristic when each of the underlying people has that characteristic. So, if Person A is short and has green eyes, person B is of average height and has green eyes, and person C is tall and has green eyes, then "Everyone" takes on the green eyes characteristic, but not the "short" one. Hence, "Everyone" has green eyes, but "everyone" isn't short. It sounds convoluted when spelled out that way, but I think each usage of everyone is both valid and used by English speakers. When considering "everyone doesn't want to be entrepreneurs", I can mentally switch between the two cases. "Everyone doesn't want to be entrepreneurs" could incorrectly mean Person A doesn't want to be an entrepreneur AND person B doesn't want to AND person C, etc.... It could ALSO mean the word "everyone" did not take on the "wants to be an entrepreneur" characteristic BECAUSE there existed people in the group that did not have it. In that case, the statement "interpreted logically" is just what was intended. For this reason, when I read the original statement, I didn't notice anything odd about it at all.

by jagtesh 17y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago

This is a pet peeve of mine, and my apologies if it feels inappropriate. I also recognise that, given your post, you are likely not be a native English speaker. If that's the case, please accept this as intended to help you improve your already excellent English. However: > ... everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur. The opposite of "Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" is "Not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur" which is (logically although not in emphasis) equivalent to "Some people don't want to be entrepreneurs." To say "everyone doesn't want to be an entrepreneur" means that there are no people in the world who want to be entrepreneurs, which is clearly false, because some people do. Again, apologies, but this is a common mistake, and it's really worth being able to recognise it when you see it, and to be able to avoid it. Sometimes it's worth recognising it and ignoring it. Apologies if this was one of those occasions.

iuguy 17y ago
I see what you're trying to do, to help the parent with American/British English, but actually the language the parent is writing in is a typical idiom found in Indian English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_English). English is the official second language of India (which doesn't mean an awful lot but consider that Hindi in Devanagari is the main language and is only spoken by just over 40% of Indians) and is generally spoken with Indian idioms. It's been this way for several hundred years. Indian English is generally as valid as American English, although less formalised.
- RiderOfGiraffes 17y ago
  I appreciate your comments, and I agree with some of what you say. Idiomatic language is not always literal language. In America, for example, people often say "The proof is in the pudding." Logically this does not make sense. Logically the original saying - "The proof of the pudding is in the eating" - makes sense, and can be interpreted literally. But idioms are atomic. They cannot be understood in any way other than as a complete whole with a meaning unextractable from the components. But idiomatic language can lead to non-understanding, and sometimes mis-understanding. Recognising it when it occurs can be important, especially when what is said can be interpreted literally and logically in a manner other than intended. My intent is not to prevent idiomatic usage of language, that would be Sisyphean. My intent to to highlight a case where was was said, when interpreted logically, is not what was intended.
  - losvedir 17y ago
    >My intent is to highlight a case where what was said, when interpreted logically, is not what was intended. I disagree that "interpreted logically" the statement is not what was intended. It just depends how you interpret the word "everyone". Is it a single representative object which takes on the combined characteristics of all the people it represents? Or is it a stand-in for comparing each and every person that it represents? You're saying it must be the latter. If you're talking about person A, person B, and person C, then "everyone" is short hand for comparing against each one. So, "Is everyone tall?" means "Is A tall?" AND "Is B tall?" AND "Is C tall?" However, that isn't the only valid way it's used. "Everyone" could be its own object, so you don't need to check against each of the underlying ones. And it only has a certain characteristic when each of the underlying people has that characteristic. So, if Person A is short and has green eyes, person B is of average height and has green eyes, and person C is tall and has green eyes, then "Everyone" takes on the green eyes characteristic, but not the "short" one. Hence, "Everyone" has green eyes, but "everyone" isn't short. It sounds convoluted when spelled out that way, but I think each usage of everyone is both valid and used by English speakers. When considering "everyone doesn't want to be entrepreneurs", I can mentally switch between the two cases. "Everyone doesn't want to be entrepreneurs" could incorrectly mean Person A doesn't want to be an entrepreneur AND person B doesn't want to AND person C, etc.... It could ALSO mean the word "everyone" did not take on the "wants to be an entrepreneur" characteristic BECAUSE there existed people in the group that did not have it. In that case, the statement "interpreted logically" is just what was intended. For this reason, when I read the original statement, I didn't notice anything odd about it at all.