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> US roads still have plenty of signs in English, like "Speed Limit", "Stop", "Yield", "Road Construction", "Detour", "No Turn On Red", etc. Nobody has any trou

by JadeNB 5y ago

> US roads still have plenty of signs in English, like "Speed Limit", "Stop", "Yield", "Road Construction", "Detour", "No Turn On Red", etc. Nobody has any trouble understanding them. I strongly suspect that "Nobody has any trouble understanding them" is not true. While I agree with you that iconitis can go overboard, I think pretending that words are universally clearer—in the sense of every place, but also for everyone, not just you—is an exaggeration.

WalterBright 5y ago
> I strongly suspect that "Nobody has any trouble understanding them" is not true. This sort of comment is inevitable. I could say "everyone likes ice cream" and I'd get a comment saying they know someone who doesn't like ice cream. I could say "people have two legs" and there's be comment about someone who was born with one leg.
- JadeNB 5y ago
  > This sort of comment is inevitable. I could say "everyone likes ice cream" and I'd get a comment saying they know someone who doesn't like ice cream. I could say "people have two legs" and there's be comment about someone who was born with one leg. It seems to me that you prove a point against your own argument here. If you said "people have two legs" in an anatomy class, then that would be the wrong place to object. If you said "people have two legs" as an argument against installing wheelchair ramps, then I think that would be the right place to object that some people don't. Given your other comments in this thread, your statement that "Nobody has any trouble understanding them" seemed to be a statement to be taken seriously if perhaps not completely literally, rather than being a casual statement of the type clearly to be understood as loaded down with qualifiers like "on average, in predominantly English-speaking in the US …". I took your argument to be against using icons, even in situations where they might allow non-English speakers equal access to crucial information, and it seems to me to be worth pointing out that universally quantified statements in that setting not only are not true in the most technical sense, but are even likely to be harmful if used to guide policy and decisions.

by JadeNB 5y ago

WalterBright 5y ago

> I strongly suspect that "Nobody has any trouble understanding them" is not true. This sort of comment is inevitable. I could say "everyone likes ice cream" and I'd get a comment saying they know someone who doesn't like ice cream. I could say "people have two legs" and there's be comment about someone who was born with one leg.

JadeNB 5y ago
> This sort of comment is inevitable. I could say "everyone likes ice cream" and I'd get a comment saying they know someone who doesn't like ice cream. I could say "people have two legs" and there's be comment about someone who was born with one leg. It seems to me that you prove a point against your own argument here. If you said "people have two legs" in an anatomy class, then that would be the wrong place to object. If you said "people have two legs" as an argument against installing wheelchair ramps, then I think that would be the right place to object that some people don't. Given your other comments in this thread, your statement that "Nobody has any trouble understanding them" seemed to be a statement to be taken seriously if perhaps not completely literally, rather than being a casual statement of the type clearly to be understood as loaded down with qualifiers like "on average, in predominantly English-speaking in the US …". I took your argument to be against using icons, even in situations where they might allow non-English speakers equal access to crucial information, and it seems to me to be worth pointing out that universally quantified statements in that setting not only are not true in the most technical sense, but are even likely to be harmful if used to guide policy and decisions.