5 ms·

"Bell Hooks" was literally her great-grandmother's name. It's really what someone was called. No one set out to deceive you.

mrob 8y ago
If the title was "In Praise of Bell Hooks" then I would still have mistakenly thought it was something about telephones, but it would have been 100% my mistake, and I would not have been annoyed. It's specifically the non-standard lowercase that is misleading and annoying. Proper nouns are conventionally capitalized, so if one is not capitalized then it's suggesting it's not a proper noun. Non-standard capitalization causes confusion, and I don't think it should be used. This isn't specific to people, e.g. I don't think you should call Adidas "adidas", or Sony "SONY", even if they claim that's the correct way to write it.
- failrate 8y ago
  Do you have the same opinion about e. e. cummings?
  - mrob 8y ago
    Yes. Even somebody I respect as much as RMS I won't call "rms". The only exception I would make is for accounts/usernames, which are IMO primarily intended to be machine readable. If I say "rms" I mean "the person currently posting from the relevant rms account", not "the person called Richard Stallman". If you reject the conventions of English, then you are writing in your own private language, and you should expect people to transliterate it into English. This is standard practice for non-English writing systems. E.g. The Prime Minister of Japan is Shinzo Abe. This is making three changes from 安倍晋三. The writing system is changed to English. The personal name and the family name are swapped. The long vowel of 三 is ignored (if you are willing to use diacritics you could write it as ō, but this is not a standard English letter, so there is nothing wrong with omitting it). This is far bigger change than just using English capitalization.
    - failrate 8y ago
      I can empathize with your viewpoint, but I feel that your interpretation is too strict. It's good for you but not for me.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    I’m not aware of any use of Cummings other than as a proper noun. When I saw bell hooks I thought it was something about webhooks and notifications or telephony.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- GavinMcG 8y ago
  That's fair, but calling it "clickbait" and claiming you've been "tricked" implies that there's someone baiting the trap – some trickster. Also, sincerely: consider why this provoked so much irritation. I completely sympathize with the feeling of annoyance; as someone who has historically overreacted to trivial annoyances, it's been healthy for me to dig into that habit and to find a different path. I imagine and hope you'll be happier doing the same.
  - mrob 8y ago
    The irritation was minor and fleeting. I consider it a healthy reaction, because it's a feeling that drives improvement. In software it's often called "paper cuts".

mrob 8y ago

If the title was "In Praise of Bell Hooks" then I would still have mistakenly thought it was something about telephones, but it would have been 100% my mistake, and I would not have been annoyed. It's specifically the non-standard lowercase that is misleading and annoying. Proper nouns are conventionally capitalized, so if one is not capitalized then it's suggesting it's not a proper noun. Non-standard capitalization causes confusion, and I don't think it should be used. This isn't specific to people, e.g. I don't think you should call Adidas "adidas", or Sony "SONY", even if they claim that's the correct way to write it.

failrate 8y ago
Do you have the same opinion about e. e. cummings?
- mrob 8y ago
  Yes. Even somebody I respect as much as RMS I won't call "rms". The only exception I would make is for accounts/usernames, which are IMO primarily intended to be machine readable. If I say "rms" I mean "the person currently posting from the relevant rms account", not "the person called Richard Stallman". If you reject the conventions of English, then you are writing in your own private language, and you should expect people to transliterate it into English. This is standard practice for non-English writing systems. E.g. The Prime Minister of Japan is Shinzo Abe. This is making three changes from 安倍晋三. The writing system is changed to English. The personal name and the family name are swapped. The long vowel of 三 is ignored (if you are willing to use diacritics you could write it as ō, but this is not a standard English letter, so there is nothing wrong with omitting it). This is far bigger change than just using English capitalization.
  - failrate 8y ago
    I can empathize with your viewpoint, but I feel that your interpretation is too strict. It's good for you but not for me.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  I’m not aware of any use of Cummings other than as a proper noun. When I saw bell hooks I thought it was something about webhooks and notifications or telephony.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
GavinMcG 8y ago
That's fair, but calling it "clickbait" and claiming you've been "tricked" implies that there's someone baiting the trap – some trickster. Also, sincerely: consider why this provoked so much irritation. I completely sympathize with the feeling of annoyance; as someone who has historically overreacted to trivial annoyances, it's been healthy for me to dig into that habit and to find a different path. I imagine and hope you'll be happier doing the same.
- mrob 8y ago
  The irritation was minor and fleeting. I consider it a healthy reaction, because it's a feeling that drives improvement. In software it's often called "paper cuts".