5 ms·

dang, the headline is "The city with no homeless on its streets", which is clickbaity and vague, but the current link title is hard to understand. Could we mayb

dang, the headline is "The city with no homeless on its streets", which is clickbaity and vague, but the current link title is hard to understand. Could we maybe compromise with "Homelessness has almost been eradicated in Helsinki?"

lisper 8y ago
"Rough sleeping" is British slang for sleeping without a roof over your head. Americans' don't know this idiom.
- sandebert 8y ago
  As a representative for Sweden, I can say this is something we had problems understanding also.
stevenjohns 8y ago
Being homeless could also mean that your house burned down so you’re staying in a hotel. Or that you’re in a battered women’s shelter. Or maybe sleeping in a car or at a friend’s house. It doesn’t just mean sleeping outside - this is a common misconception.
- yeutterg 8y ago
  Some digital nomads classify themselves as homeless, although it's a bit tongue-in-cheek as they are clearly of a different socioeconomic status. At least for me, when I hear the word homeless I first think of someone living on the streets. We don't have exact equivalent to rough sleeping in the U.S. that I can readily think of.
dang 8y ago
I think it's fine for the BBC to use a British idiom. It only takes a simple lookup to understand it.
- sdrothrock 8y ago
  I'm not arguing that the BBC shouldn't have used it, but that the editorialized submission headline here on HN could have been a bit more user-friendly -- it's not the headline that the BBC used. The BBC, in fact, used the word "homeless" in its own headline: "The city with no homeless on its streets." :)
  - DanBC 8y ago
    The BBC is experimenting with headlines so it's possible OP submitted the article when it was different.
  - dang 8y ago
    The HN title uses language from the summary paragraph below the article heading, which is sort of an extended subtitle. That's legit to do on HN, especially when the language there is more factual and less baity. I don't see anything user-unfriendly about using the phrase "rough sleeping". Remember that this is a site for gratifying curiosity. Encountering a phrase you haven't heard before is an opportunity to be curious. Plus it's good for HN readers to have to work a little. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20%22work%20a%20little%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

lisper 8y ago

"Rough sleeping" is British slang for sleeping without a roof over your head. Americans' don't know this idiom.

sandebert 8y ago
As a representative for Sweden, I can say this is something we had problems understanding also.

stevenjohns 8y ago

Being homeless could also mean that your house burned down so you’re staying in a hotel. Or that you’re in a battered women’s shelter. Or maybe sleeping in a car or at a friend’s house. It doesn’t just mean sleeping outside - this is a common misconception.

yeutterg 8y ago
Some digital nomads classify themselves as homeless, although it's a bit tongue-in-cheek as they are clearly of a different socioeconomic status. At least for me, when I hear the word homeless I first think of someone living on the streets. We don't have exact equivalent to rough sleeping in the U.S. that I can readily think of.

dang 8y ago

I think it's fine for the BBC to use a British idiom. It only takes a simple lookup to understand it.

sdrothrock 8y ago
I'm not arguing that the BBC shouldn't have used it, but that the editorialized submission headline here on HN could have been a bit more user-friendly -- it's not the headline that the BBC used. The BBC, in fact, used the word "homeless" in its own headline: "The city with no homeless on its streets." :)
- DanBC 8y ago
  The BBC is experimenting with headlines so it's possible OP submitted the article when it was different.
- dang 8y ago
  The HN title uses language from the summary paragraph below the article heading, which is sort of an extended subtitle. That's legit to do on HN, especially when the language there is more factual and less baity. I don't see anything user-unfriendly about using the phrase "rough sleeping". Remember that this is a site for gratifying curiosity. Encountering a phrase you haven't heard before is an opportunity to be curious. Plus it's good for HN readers to have to work a little. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20%22work%20a%20little%22 https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...