4 ms·
> big enough to be sued fixed this for you, but not really, because usually it's the small firms that may break under the pressure of suits.
by posterboy 9y ago
> big enough to be sued
fixed this for you, but not really, because usually it's the small firms that may break under the pressure of suits.
- jacobush 9y agoBig companies sue small ones to break them. (For reasons, like nipping potential competition in the bud for instance.) Patent trolls sue large ones because there is meat on their bones.
- taejo 9y agoThe cake is too pretty to eat. The child is too full to eat. Both are fine. Human language is like that.
- posterboy 9y agoWhat is "that", or rather how? "broken"? Language is inherently underspecific, yes, but that's the opposite of "fine". The passive is well understood, therefore it should be used. It just baffles me how coders could glance over this. I probably would't have said anything if the topic wasn't a legal matter where precise language is paramount. Suddenly you are framed for cannibalistic tendencies.
- thaumaturgy 9y agoFWIW I agree that your version is more readable, and since I'd like my writing to not suck someday, I appreciate the edit. Suggesting edits to others' comments on HN is tricky though because it will usually at best be off-topic for the conversation, and at worst lead to several off-topic comments, as in this case. For that reason they tend to get downvoted.
- posterboy 9y agoWell it clarified for me that the focus on big firms was apparently true.
- taejo 9y ago"Fine" as in the syntax of English allows both. "Like that" in that yes, human language is incessantly, pervasively ambiguous. Most utterances are technically ambiguous. In this case your suggestion certainly is clearer than the original, but the original isn't wrong, and HN isn't a law court or a writing circle and you're not our sub-editor, so if you didn't understand something or want to clarify something for other readers, go ahead and do that graciously, rather than "correcting" with a brusque "fixed that for you".
- IncRnd 9y ago>> big enough to be sued > fixed this for you Your fix is incorrect. Both infinitives are correct. One is passive and the other is active.
- posterboy 9y agoSo my fix isn't incorrect after all, and less ambiguous at that? Cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Path_Sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_Path_Sentence You are right insofar reading it as containing a zero grade would give to sue (them). I can only guess the mind of the poster was already firing up a few neurons about "them" suing in return or sumsuch. Or I'm just really miserable with analytic languages.
- IncRnd 9y agoThe sentence was not a garden-path, which can be seen by the contrast that was being performed. Company you've never heard of because they're in the business of patent lawsuits vs. Company you've heard of because they're big enough to sue "Big enough to sue" refers to company B being sued, not company A (the patent troll).
- posterboy 9y agoThis looks like a monad. The first sentence binds the subject and so on. I think translating that to monadic predicate logic is a skill, so my criticism still stands. But now I'm just arguing for arguments sake, so don't mind me.
- IncRnd 9y agoExactly! Now we're talking! The key is that you're mis-identifying the combinator.