4 ms·

I hate usage of verbiage like "unable to" when it's very clearly "don't wish to". Abusing language to make it seem like there is some hard barrier to you perfo

by jpgvm 4y ago

I hate usage of verbiage like "unable to" when it's very clearly "don't wish to". Abusing language to make it seem like there is some hard barrier to you performing some task really annoys me. They clearly are able (and in some jurisdictions will be compelled) to refund purchases, they are just expressing their desire for you to go fk yourself.

anakaine 4y ago
This is really the truth of the matter, isn't it. All major payment processors permit merchants to refund. Each merchant in this case can revoke licence keys, if only they were to connect refunds to revocations in their store. This isn't a "can't do", it's a "we don't want to do" situation.
Diesel555 4y ago
Even worse is when it is put into passive language to intentionally remove the subject - which is done in political speeches to address negative outcomes. It has the subtle effect of shifting blame from the subject. Examples [1]. "We are unable to provide refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases" becomes "Refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases are unable to be provided." [1] https://www.ranker.com/list/times-politicians-used-passive-voice-to-deflect-blame/ranker-news https://www.ranker.com/list/times-politicians-used-passive-v...
- Thorrez 4y ago
  When police describe a shooting by a suspect, they use the active voice. When they describe a shooting by an officer, they use the passive voice. > The suspect produced a semi-automatic handgun and fired numerous times striking the victim in the torso. > The suspect then ran towards the officers still armed with the sword and an officer-involved-shooting occurred. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/the-curious-grammar-of-police-shootings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/...
  - noptd 4y ago
    >Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - michaelterryio 4y ago
      Ugh, you’re so right, but they’re so right too!
      - technothrasher 4y ago
        Not really. I looked into this last time it came up, and it seems to be mostly confirmation bias. A Google search of news stories and police statements showed plenty of examples where the passive voice was used to describe suspect actions and the active voice used to describe police actions, including shootings.
        saurik 4y ago
        I don't think anyone would claim that literally every single time that is true but only that it is a non-negligible effect. (It still might be false, but you need to try harder.)
        joebob42 4y ago
        I think though that in this case the person who needs to try harder is the one who originated the claim, not the person trying to dispute it, given that the person who made the claim originally didn't provide any evidence.
        saurik 4y ago
        It's a well-known thought process that has even been covered by places such as the Washington Post (among others, to be clear)... which I took the 30 seconds just now to find for you -- even though I think it is extreme frustrating when people whine about proactive citations for this kind of thing as it simply isn't a fair way to have a conversation -- and then when I switched back here to write this I realized that "the person who made the claim" in fact said it as well. Like, this is a well-known enough thought process that the person I responded to had already felt a need to dig into this themselves before, only they dug into it wrong as a misinterpretation of the claim. Where I'd say we currently stand is thereby "seems like a credible hypothesis worthy of discussion". If anything, I can see a more useful way to ding the original claim here -- based on my knowledge of this ongoing discussion -- but it isn't to whine about how they should have already needed to provide evidence in their initial post, and nor certainly is it "I found a bunch of counter examples". But even that seems like a non-sequitur as the interesting thing here clearly wasn't an attempt to sideline us into a discussion about police but was instead just an attempt to make a wider discussion about annoying usage of passive voice and other language shenanigans to avoid directly admitting blame or control -- which is an entirely fair point and I will strongly claim is a fully valid thing to be discussing and criticizing of this statement by Nintendo -- and while I could see reasonably pushing back on it in that light in a ton of ways, again: that set doesn't include whining about citations during a discussion and likely doesn't include defenses of oblique rebuttals :(.
- nwellnhof 4y ago
  "Mistakes were made."
  - phasersout 4y ago
    "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"
jwmoz 4y ago
'Normal' people fall for it all the time. Had to explain to my gf there's nothing stopping you or I from doing something like that with our own company.
OJFord 4y ago
> (and in some jurisdictions will be compelled) IANAL, but including in the UK I believe, which this FAQ purports to serve. https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse... (Seems to originate with the EU, but I thought it was much older, intending to cover mail order at first. I can't find reference to what it replaced if that's the case though.)
- teh_klev 4y ago
  The original scheme in the UK was called the Mail Order Protection Scheme (MOPS).
- d1sxeyes 4y ago
  Nah, digital goods are excepted, but there are steps that Nintendo need to take such as actively warning customers at the time of purchase: https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses/online-selling https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...
hooby 4y ago
unable != unwilling exactly that.
chii 4y ago
> Abusing language language is the way to control the brain. By making language passive, they make the reader passive, and make them avoid thinking about the subject. By calling it "unable", they make the reason un-askable.
- behnamoh 4y ago
  “the purchases are not able to be returned”
suls 4y ago
Not trying to defend them but I often see these sentences when Japanese is translated too verbatim. 「申し訳ございませんが…出来ません。」is a very formal way of saying this. Context then of course tells the receiver if they really can’t or just don’t want to ..
- grapeskin 4y ago
  Even in Japanese it has the same context. When a company simply chooses not to do something, they often use 致しません。When they use 出来ません it would mean not possible (eg unable to ship an order due to time constraints) or because they want to pretend it’s too difficult and unreasonable of a request.
- posterboy 4y ago
  They are patently unable to
- gimmeThaBeet 4y ago
  I don't know much Japanese, but yeah that's one of the ideas that comes up immediately. Definitely not my place to say if it's too verbatim, the one I've heard several times is muzukashii / 難しい. I think it's hard to translate because just 'no' loses part of it, "no thank you (but I didn't actually say no)". So it sort of develops into the translation having a coded meaning, where difficult things are 'polite' refusals.
micromacrofoot 4y ago
Well if they haven’t built the ability to issue refunds… then they’re unable to because they’re unwilling to build the feature
datavirtue 4y ago
After buying a few Switches and using Nintendo's online service they seem very stodgy to me. It just feels like they are struggling to get it. The user experience is horrible. You go from the ease of slapping in a cartridge to navigating thier downloadable content--it feels like getting hit by a brick wall. Older people and the disabled, good luck using their system. I got tired of mucking with it and simply stopped playing games on the Switch. Remarkably clunky--reminds me of Jira. This bit of news is no surprise at all--they are basically refusing to deal with a problem they created. Sad.
kderbyma 4y ago
I agree. they should own their crappy user experience and just say they dgaf

by jpgvm 4y ago

anakaine 4y ago

This is really the truth of the matter, isn't it. All major payment processors permit merchants to refund. Each merchant in this case can revoke licence keys, if only they were to connect refunds to revocations in their store. This isn't a "can't do", it's a "we don't want to do" situation.

Diesel555 4y ago

Even worse is when it is put into passive language to intentionally remove the subject - which is done in political speeches to address negative outcomes. It has the subtle effect of shifting blame from the subject. Examples [1]. "We are unable to provide refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases" becomes "Refunds or exchanges for mistaken purchases are unable to be provided." [1] https://www.ranker.com/list/times-politicians-used-passive-voice-to-deflect-blame/ranker-news https://www.ranker.com/list/times-politicians-used-passive-v...

Thorrez 4y ago
When police describe a shooting by a suspect, they use the active voice. When they describe a shooting by an officer, they use the passive voice. > The suspect produced a semi-automatic handgun and fired numerous times striking the victim in the torso. > The suspect then ran towards the officers still armed with the sword and an officer-involved-shooting occurred. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/the-curious-grammar-of-police-shootings/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/07/14/...
- noptd 4y ago
  >Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - michaelterryio 4y ago
    Ugh, you’re so right, but they’re so right too!
    - technothrasher 4y ago
      Not really. I looked into this last time it came up, and it seems to be mostly confirmation bias. A Google search of news stories and police statements showed plenty of examples where the passive voice was used to describe suspect actions and the active voice used to describe police actions, including shootings.
      - saurik 4y ago
        I don't think anyone would claim that literally every single time that is true but only that it is a non-negligible effect. (It still might be false, but you need to try harder.)
        joebob42 4y ago
        I think though that in this case the person who needs to try harder is the one who originated the claim, not the person trying to dispute it, given that the person who made the claim originally didn't provide any evidence.
        saurik 4y ago
        It's a well-known thought process that has even been covered by places such as the Washington Post (among others, to be clear)... which I took the 30 seconds just now to find for you -- even though I think it is extreme frustrating when people whine about proactive citations for this kind of thing as it simply isn't a fair way to have a conversation -- and then when I switched back here to write this I realized that "the person who made the claim" in fact said it as well. Like, this is a well-known enough thought process that the person I responded to had already felt a need to dig into this themselves before, only they dug into it wrong as a misinterpretation of the claim. Where I'd say we currently stand is thereby "seems like a credible hypothesis worthy of discussion". If anything, I can see a more useful way to ding the original claim here -- based on my knowledge of this ongoing discussion -- but it isn't to whine about how they should have already needed to provide evidence in their initial post, and nor certainly is it "I found a bunch of counter examples". But even that seems like a non-sequitur as the interesting thing here clearly wasn't an attempt to sideline us into a discussion about police but was instead just an attempt to make a wider discussion about annoying usage of passive voice and other language shenanigans to avoid directly admitting blame or control -- which is an entirely fair point and I will strongly claim is a fully valid thing to be discussing and criticizing of this statement by Nintendo -- and while I could see reasonably pushing back on it in that light in a ton of ways, again: that set doesn't include whining about citations during a discussion and likely doesn't include defenses of oblique rebuttals :(.
nwellnhof 4y ago
"Mistakes were made."
- phasersout 4y ago
  "It's not a bug, it's a feature!"

jwmoz 4y ago

'Normal' people fall for it all the time. Had to explain to my gf there's nothing stopping you or I from doing something like that with our own company.

OJFord 4y ago

> (and in some jurisdictions will be compelled) IANAL, but including in the UK I believe, which this FAQ purports to serve. https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse... (Seems to originate with the EU, but I thought it was much older, intending to cover mail order at first. I can't find reference to what it replaced if that's the case though.)

teh_klev 4y ago
The original scheme in the UK was called the Mail Order Protection Scheme (MOPS).
d1sxeyes 4y ago
Nah, digital goods are excepted, but there are steps that Nintendo need to take such as actively warning customers at the time of purchase: https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses/online-selling https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse...

hooby 4y ago

unable != unwilling exactly that.

chii 4y ago

> Abusing language language is the way to control the brain. By making language passive, they make the reader passive, and make them avoid thinking about the subject. By calling it "unable", they make the reason un-askable.

behnamoh 4y ago
“the purchases are not able to be returned”

suls 4y ago

Not trying to defend them but I often see these sentences when Japanese is translated too verbatim. 「申し訳ございませんが…出来ません。」is a very formal way of saying this. Context then of course tells the receiver if they really can’t or just don’t want to ..

grapeskin 4y ago
Even in Japanese it has the same context. When a company simply chooses not to do something, they often use 致しません。When they use 出来ません it would mean not possible (eg unable to ship an order due to time constraints) or because they want to pretend it’s too difficult and unreasonable of a request.
posterboy 4y ago
They are patently unable to
gimmeThaBeet 4y ago
I don't know much Japanese, but yeah that's one of the ideas that comes up immediately. Definitely not my place to say if it's too verbatim, the one I've heard several times is muzukashii / 難しい. I think it's hard to translate because just 'no' loses part of it, "no thank you (but I didn't actually say no)". So it sort of develops into the translation having a coded meaning, where difficult things are 'polite' refusals.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

Well if they haven’t built the ability to issue refunds… then they’re unable to because they’re unwilling to build the feature

datavirtue 4y ago

After buying a few Switches and using Nintendo's online service they seem very stodgy to me. It just feels like they are struggling to get it. The user experience is horrible. You go from the ease of slapping in a cartridge to navigating thier downloadable content--it feels like getting hit by a brick wall. Older people and the disabled, good luck using their system. I got tired of mucking with it and simply stopped playing games on the Switch. Remarkably clunky--reminds me of Jira. This bit of news is no surprise at all--they are basically refusing to deal with a problem they created. Sad.

kderbyma 4y ago

I agree. they should own their crappy user experience and just say they dgaf