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I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where y

by kleiba 9y ago

I personally find the use of single word "This." in reply to a comment on forums (such as e.g. HN) really annoying. (But then again, I've reached an age where you tend to find everything new awful.) I guess the reason why it pisses me off is that it doesn't do anything that "Yes.", "Exactly.", "I agree" couldn't already do, but at the same time it has this overly sweet smell of kool-aid that just makes you sick.

nasredin 9y ago
this. times a 1,000. [image of a text] sorry gotta go. my raw water delivery just arrived [emoji].
- arwhatever 9y ago
  I can't tell which earlier message you're thissing.
  - dasil003 9y ago
    Like the GGP I sort of hate "This.", but I think I love "thissing".
    - arbie 9y ago
      Indeed, it seems very hard to dis the thissing.
js2 9y ago
For me (I’m 46 so I think I’ve reached “get off my lawn” age), it’s short for “this [is the correct answer.]” So I’ve never had a problem with it and probably used it once or twice myself. A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before and in my mind I’ve always read it “owned.” Now that was a “get off my lawn moment!”
- shasheene 9y ago
  > A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before and in my mind I’ve always read it “owned.” Now that was a “get off my lawn moment!” That pronunciation was popularized by the famous South Park episode on World of Warcraft [1] [2] which first aired in 2006. So it's not actually particularly new at all. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPx__G9GkRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPx__G9GkRY [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Love,_Not_Warcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Love,_Not_Warcraft
  - Balgair 9y ago
    I'd go with the all time great Canadian Gamer show: PurePwnage, from 2004, as the popularizer of the spoken term. Though it goes back to at least 1999 with the original CounterStrike and the term in text, then read aloud. I remember the shouts of 'pone' in the afterschool computer lounge from friends to at least 1999, if not earlier. http://www.purepwnage.com/ http://www.purepwnage.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Pwnage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Pwnage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn
    - shasheene 9y ago
      I don't dispute the pronunciation as 'poned' goes back further, but I'm saying that South Park popularized it. PurePwnage uses the pronunciation 'owned', right?
      - acct1771 9y ago
        "...you pronounce 'own' as 'pwn', what gives?"
    - chapium 9y ago
      It was definitely popular in fps games in 99’
- 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
logicallee 9y ago
To me the word you quoted is much stronger than "exactly" or "I agree." The latter two are about the sentiment but the former means something like "This is the best possible phrasing I can imagine: I completely agree and you have captured everything, perfectly." While for a deep discourse (as on HN) -- Oh. Okay so nevermind. When I started to write this comment I was going to say that here on hacker news it fosters a deeper discourse, but as a poor reader on Reddit reading through 700 comments, do you really want to read the long sentence I just quoted, or are you helped by reading "this", to call your attention upthread. However I realized that Reddit's 700 comments on each thread are - almost all noise. "This" is a kneejerk one word answer that completely shuts down discourse. So after actually writing my comment I have switched my opinion. Which itself may well have been due to the style of discourse encouraged here!
hiccuphippo 9y ago
For me the worst offender is /thread
- IncRnd 9y ago
  Indeed +1 This Yes /sarc
- coatmatter 9y ago
  "non-trivial" is the one that annoys me the most but I can't fully explain why. Perhaps it's a bit like the reaction when I hear "visceral" while listening to book and movie reviews. It just seems a tad pretentious; or stuck-up. Urgh. I understand it's all about precision but to me it doesn't feel like the type of plain English that normal people use. Perhaps it's too... formulaic?
Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago
To me, "This." is stronger than "Yes.", "Exactly.", etc. In my opinion, "This." means that you not only agree with the previous comments, but you could have made it yourself. It has a connotation of "This is the full answer", "This is it, you don't even need to read further below", "This is exactly the same thing I would have said". I might be making the connotations up, though, it's not like there is a dictionary covering this kind of things.
- acct1771 9y ago
  Exactly.

by kleiba 9y ago

nasredin 9y ago

this. times a 1,000. [image of a text] sorry gotta go. my raw water delivery just arrived [emoji].

arwhatever 9y ago
I can't tell which earlier message you're thissing.
- dasil003 9y ago
  Like the GGP I sort of hate "This.", but I think I love "thissing".
  - arbie 9y ago
    Indeed, it seems very hard to dis the thissing.

js2 9y ago

For me (I’m 46 so I think I’ve reached “get off my lawn” age), it’s short for “this [is the correct answer.]” So I’ve never had a problem with it and probably used it once or twice myself. A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before and in my mind I’ve always read it “owned.” Now that was a “get off my lawn moment!”

shasheene 9y ago
> A couple summers ago at the pool I heard a teenage girl exclaim “poned!” after besting her friend at something they were playing. It took me a moment to realize she’d just said “pwned” since I’d never heard it said out loud before and in my mind I’ve always read it “owned.” Now that was a “get off my lawn moment!” That pronunciation was popularized by the famous South Park episode on World of Warcraft [1] [2] which first aired in 2006. So it's not actually particularly new at all. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPx__G9GkRY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPx__G9GkRY [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Love,_Not_Warcraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Love,_Not_Warcraft
- Balgair 9y ago
  I'd go with the all time great Canadian Gamer show: PurePwnage, from 2004, as the popularizer of the spoken term. Though it goes back to at least 1999 with the original CounterStrike and the term in text, then read aloud. I remember the shouts of 'pone' in the afterschool computer lounge from friends to at least 1999, if not earlier. http://www.purepwnage.com/ http://www.purepwnage.com/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Pwnage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_Pwnage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pwn
  - shasheene 9y ago
    I don't dispute the pronunciation as 'poned' goes back further, but I'm saying that South Park popularized it. PurePwnage uses the pronunciation 'owned', right?
    - acct1771 9y ago
      "...you pronounce 'own' as 'pwn', what gives?"
  - chapium 9y ago
    It was definitely popular in fps games in 99’
9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

logicallee 9y ago

To me the word you quoted is much stronger than "exactly" or "I agree." The latter two are about the sentiment but the former means something like "This is the best possible phrasing I can imagine: I completely agree and you have captured everything, perfectly." While for a deep discourse (as on HN) -- Oh. Okay so nevermind. When I started to write this comment I was going to say that here on hacker news it fosters a deeper discourse, but as a poor reader on Reddit reading through 700 comments, do you really want to read the long sentence I just quoted, or are you helped by reading "this", to call your attention upthread. However I realized that Reddit's 700 comments on each thread are - almost all noise. "This" is a kneejerk one word answer that completely shuts down discourse. So after actually writing my comment I have switched my opinion. Which itself may well have been due to the style of discourse encouraged here!

hiccuphippo 9y ago

For me the worst offender is /thread

IncRnd 9y ago
Indeed +1 This Yes /sarc
coatmatter 9y ago
"non-trivial" is the one that annoys me the most but I can't fully explain why. Perhaps it's a bit like the reaction when I hear "visceral" while listening to book and movie reviews. It just seems a tad pretentious; or stuck-up. Urgh. I understand it's all about precision but to me it doesn't feel like the type of plain English that normal people use. Perhaps it's too... formulaic?

Al-Khwarizmi 9y ago

To me, "This." is stronger than "Yes.", "Exactly.", etc. In my opinion, "This." means that you not only agree with the previous comments, but you could have made it yourself. It has a connotation of "This is the full answer", "This is it, you don't even need to read further below", "This is exactly the same thing I would have said". I might be making the connotations up, though, it's not like there is a dictionary covering this kind of things.

acct1771 9y ago
Exactly.