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Thanks. Most people know exactly nothing about linguistics, but because everyone speaks a language, they feel qualified to talk about it. The results are mostl

Thanks. Most people know exactly nothing about linguistics, but because everyone speaks a language, they feel qualified to talk about it. The results are mostly ridiculous to anyone actually trained in the field.

dang 4y ago
I'm sure all that's true (we see the same things in diet threads too - you eat food? no way, me too!) - but still, please don't post empty putdowns like this to HN. It just makes things worse. When you know more than others, the thing to do is to share some of what you know, so we all can learn. That's what macleginn did in the GP comment, making the thread much better. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=share%20know%20learn%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- vt85 4y ago
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- Tainnor 4y ago
  I get your point, but the reasoning for my "putdown" can be found in GGP's comment, so I feel like you're getting hung up on a minor issue here. I was merely corroborating the first sentence of GGP's comment. Certainly, if the bar for comments here is "it has to make the reader substantially more knowledgeable", not a lot of comments would remain. Even in this very comment section, I can find other "empty putdowns" or not very substantiated comments.
  - dang 4y ago
    Maybe so, but that would be a reason to post fewer empty putdowns, not more.