4 ms·

I’m sorry but as a native speaker your phrasing is awkward and a pain to parse. Unpack isn’t synonym for ‘uncover’ and the rest was equally clumsy. The “if th

I’m sorry but as a native speaker your phrasing is awkward and a pain to parse. Unpack isn’t synonym for ‘uncover’ and the rest was equally clumsy. The “if the rules didn’t stop me I’d give you the finger, you imbecile” tact is a little ironic.

ggm 6y ago
Yes. I leave this as an object lesson to self. I do often find the one finger points out, three point in rule, generally applies.
- svnpenn 6y ago
  What is wrong with you? Why do you talk like that? It's like you take a normal sentence, then swap out some random words until it no longer makes sense. It's not cool, it's just weird.
  - ggm 6y ago
    How old are you? I'm 59. In my peer set, this is normal.
    - prepend 6y ago
      I want to learn more about your peer set, this is really curious.
      - ggm 6y ago
        No, its just how some people mangle English. I didn't go to Oxbridge, but a lot of my workmates in the eighties did and they sometimes wrote very strange sentence structure. An American instance: Prof Dave Mills (certainly in no sense a peer, since he's out of my league, but we did write on the same arpanet and pre great renaming Usenet lists. Also he didn't go to Oxbridge) says this of his own style of writing: It is an open secret among my correspondents that I on occasion do twitch the English language in mail messages and published works. Paper referees have come to agreement on what they call millsspeak to refer to the subtilities with which I personalize my work. If you read my papers or my mail, you know my resonances. If not, you can calibrate my naughtimeter from children's books Jon Crowcroft, who is a CS professor in Cambridge, but was a phd student in ucl-cs when I worked there in the eighties: http://paravirtualization.blogspot.com/ http://paravirtualization.blogspot.com/ also, probably presumptuous to call him a peer: if he keeps going, he may be one both literally, and by appointment. Of the realm that is, not I. Overall I think I miswrote above. Absent a time machine, it stands. Obviously, this stuff irritates a lot of people. I apologise, but really at this stage I doubt I'm changing. Btw, and please forgive me if this is a breach of privacy but HN comment history shows you've accumulated a 25 year deep curated unix command history file. If I had the forethought to have done the same (which btw, is a brilliant idea) it would be older than yours. It most definitely would not be better, and very possibly more narrow in focus. I suspect, the pretensions of written English aside, we're not that different.
        dekhn 6y ago
        This is a situation, up with which, I shall not put
  - carapace 6y ago
    Instead of getting rude, you could have just searched "one finger points out, three point in" on DDG: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=one+finger+points+out%2C+three+point+in&atb=v60-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=one+finger+points+out%2C+th... First result: > 'When you point a finger at someone, remember there are three pointing back' ...
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      What makes it hard for me to read is mainly the comma-placement, which is quite different from the verbal pauses you'd make when reading it, and break up rather than separate the logical parts. I found myself asking "what does it mean to point in rule?" Italics or quotes would have helped.
      - michaelcampbell 6y ago
        I think it was more the lack of any sort of container; does: ...the "one finger points out, three point in" rule, generally applies... parse any better?

ggm 6y ago

Yes. I leave this as an object lesson to self. I do often find the one finger points out, three point in rule, generally applies.

svnpenn 6y ago
What is wrong with you? Why do you talk like that? It's like you take a normal sentence, then swap out some random words until it no longer makes sense. It's not cool, it's just weird.
- ggm 6y ago
  How old are you? I'm 59. In my peer set, this is normal.
  - prepend 6y ago
    I want to learn more about your peer set, this is really curious.
    - ggm 6y ago
      No, its just how some people mangle English. I didn't go to Oxbridge, but a lot of my workmates in the eighties did and they sometimes wrote very strange sentence structure. An American instance: Prof Dave Mills (certainly in no sense a peer, since he's out of my league, but we did write on the same arpanet and pre great renaming Usenet lists. Also he didn't go to Oxbridge) says this of his own style of writing: It is an open secret among my correspondents that I on occasion do twitch the English language in mail messages and published works. Paper referees have come to agreement on what they call millsspeak to refer to the subtilities with which I personalize my work. If you read my papers or my mail, you know my resonances. If not, you can calibrate my naughtimeter from children's books Jon Crowcroft, who is a CS professor in Cambridge, but was a phd student in ucl-cs when I worked there in the eighties: http://paravirtualization.blogspot.com/ http://paravirtualization.blogspot.com/ also, probably presumptuous to call him a peer: if he keeps going, he may be one both literally, and by appointment. Of the realm that is, not I. Overall I think I miswrote above. Absent a time machine, it stands. Obviously, this stuff irritates a lot of people. I apologise, but really at this stage I doubt I'm changing. Btw, and please forgive me if this is a breach of privacy but HN comment history shows you've accumulated a 25 year deep curated unix command history file. If I had the forethought to have done the same (which btw, is a brilliant idea) it would be older than yours. It most definitely would not be better, and very possibly more narrow in focus. I suspect, the pretensions of written English aside, we're not that different.
      - dekhn 6y ago
        This is a situation, up with which, I shall not put
- carapace 6y ago
  Instead of getting rude, you could have just searched "one finger points out, three point in" on DDG: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=one+finger+points+out%2C+three+point+in&atb=v60-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=one+finger+points+out%2C+th... First result: > 'When you point a finger at someone, remember there are three pointing back' ...
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    What makes it hard for me to read is mainly the comma-placement, which is quite different from the verbal pauses you'd make when reading it, and break up rather than separate the logical parts. I found myself asking "what does it mean to point in rule?" Italics or quotes would have helped.
    - michaelcampbell 6y ago
      I think it was more the lack of any sort of container; does: ...the "one finger points out, three point in" rule, generally applies... parse any better?