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Weird title. The correct English would be "Why did Airbnb dump React Native?". All of the sub-headings have this strange construction as well. Is this 'correct'

by ajkjk 4y ago

Weird title. The correct English would be "Why did Airbnb dump React Native?". All of the sub-headings have this strange construction as well. Is this 'correct' in some other country and I'm just not aware of it? I was gonna say, it's also weird because the text of the article seems nearly-native quality.. but actually when I went back and looked more closely it's semi-broken English as well. I guess it's in big wordy paragraphs that you skim and don't notice the grammar of.

drc500free 4y ago
I don't know what's even considered correct in Indian English, but it tracks with some of the non-standard word ordering I see working with folks from the subcontinent.
acchow 4y ago
Merriam-Webster shows plenty of examples of usage at the top https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dump https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dump "He dumped his clothes on the bed. She dumped the contents of her purse on the table. I dumped the old coffee down the drain."
- yupper32 4y ago
  Dumped as word isn't the incorrect English. The formation of the question is the incorrect English. Correct: He dumped his clothes on the bed. Incorrect: Why he dumped his clothes on the bed? Correct: Why did he dump his clothes on the bed?
  - filoleg 4y ago
    Another fix that could make the title correct is getting rid of the question mark. Then it just becomes a statement of "Why airbnb dumped RN."
    - meepmorp 4y ago
      Yeah, seems odd to a western native speaker because it's a statement not a question, despite the use of a wh-word.
  - solardev 4y ago
    Minor nitpick, I don't know if there really is such a thing as a singular "correct English", especially when you're comparing across cultural groups (but even within). There are so many variations between American English (and its various subgroupings), British English, Indian English, Singaporean English, etc. It's a widely-used living language, and one without a central authority (language regulator, unlike many other languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators) So English just kinda grows and grows haphazardly. There are more people in India who speak English (Wikipedia estimates 30% of 1.38 billion, which is 400 million) than there are Americans or UK residents. IMO their particular usage isn't any more or less correct, any more than American English is more or less correct than British English. It's not a matter of being politically correct or anti-racist or whatever, just the observation that English has always been a hodgepodge of regionalisms and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, and by speakers/population alone, probably the American and British varieties will continue to shrink as other Englishes take over. Probably it's us Westerners that will need to adopt to the new Englishes rather than the other way around. Grammar prescriptivists and grade school teachers might disagree, but well, they are overwhelmingly in the minority already and will become increasingly more so.
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      Syntax affects semantics. Seeing "Why he dumped his clothes on the bed?" you can guess that they MEANT to say was "Why did he dump his clothes on the bed?" But there's a bit of uncertainty there, was that really what they meant to say? Or did they mean to say something like "Why did he dump his clothes on the bed IS MY QUESTION" but somehow the rest of the sentence got lost. Syntactically correct sentences have typically a much more precise semantics than syntactically incorrect ones. One could argue that incorrect syntax means the meaning is anybody's guess. Point is when we read or hear language we must interpret it by assuming what we think the speaker wants to say. But if syntax is incorrect that becomes much more difficult. Therefor correct syntax is a god-send for getting your point across. Think about the way browsers interpret HTML. They allow you to deviate from the standard somewhat. But that causes different browsers to produce different visible output. Not a good thing. Maybe the coder thinks they are getting their point across, but depending on the audience, what browser they are using, the "point" can get lost. Best bet is to use standard syntax.
solardev 4y ago
I often see similar formations in casual translations from other languages. The blog is from "the immigrant programmers", so I guess that'd make sense. I am not a linguist but maybe this particular phenomenon is related to subject-verb inversion in a question sentence clause? Something like the stuff they're talking about on page 5 of this paper, maybe: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_wh-questions_in_L2_English_in_India_Inversion_as_a_main_clause_phenomenon https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_... (over my head) Like the examples they give include: > "What this is made from?" > "Who you have come to see?" > "I asked him where does he work." > "I wonder where is he." They all sound strange to me but are apparently common in some Englishes. There were many other giveaways in the article that you'd never see in everyday American English usage: "Oh yes, it happened!" (who says that) "giant Online American Vacation Rental Business" (...it's just a vacation rental website) "the, excessive use, of commas, everywhere"
- iib 4y ago
  It may be a form of "Euro English" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English
cercatrova 4y ago
Looks like the author is Indian or more generally South Asian based on the video and profile picture, and in that English dialect, it's more expected to write statements as questions like the title rather than "Why did Airbnb dump React Native?"
parasti 4y ago
Is it strange that it seems less wrong to me without the question mark?
- solardev 4y ago
  No, in American (and I think British) English, it's common to add a word before the subject in a question. "Why Airbnb dumped RN" does not have to be a question. But when it is, American and British speakers expects an "auxiliary", I think it's called... from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93auxiliary_inversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93auxiliary_inve... "Sam enjoys the paper" is fine. "Sam enjoys the paper?" sounds weird, like you're questioning the sentence itself rather than asking Sam if they enjoyed the paper. "DOES Sam enjoy the paper?" adds an auxiliary (does) and makes it more natural sounding, I guess, to our ears.
  - jjnoakes 4y ago
    To me it sounds like this: "Sam enjoys the paper?" could have emphasis on "Sam" and sound fine - it is asking if it is Sam or someone else who enjoys the paper. "Sam enjoys the paper?" could have emphasis on "enjoys" and sounds fine - it is asking if Sam enjoys the paper or feels some other way. "Sam enjoys the paper?" could have emphasis on "paper" and sounds fine - it is asking if Sam enjoys the paper or something else. And "Does Sam enjoy the paper?" sounds fine too - it is asking a more specific yes/no question.
    - solardev 4y ago
      Right, but in all the "Sam enjoys the paper?" uses, you'd normally only do that if you were repeating something already said, and questioning a specific part of it. Like your friend said, "Sam enjoys the paper" and you're asking for a clarification by repeating and emphasizing a part of the statement. Otherwise, it's just easier/clearer to phrase it like "Who was enjoying the paper?" or "How does Sam feel about the paper?" or "What does Sam like to read?" But those constructions don't necessarily apply to other regional variants of English (especially if English is a second language for them). In that case they may be adapting their English grammar to be closer to the syntax of another language they speak. Several of us here, including myself, are guessing that the blog author may be Indian (I'm not sure, it's just a guess). If so, there are papers studying this phenomenon or something close to it (I'm not really sure... I'm interested in languages, but I'm not at all a linguist and this is way over my head...). I'll quote (emphasis added) one paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_wh-questions_in_L2_English_in_India_Inversion_as_a_main_clause_phenomenon https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_... > The corpus study reported here challenges a conventional assumption in the World Englishes literature concerning the grammar of L2 English in India: that auxiliary inversion with wh -movement (henceforth wh -inversion) is exactly the opposite of standard U.S. and U.K. English, being impossible in main clauses yet obligatory in embedded clauses (Bhatt, 2000 ; Mesthrie & Bhatt, 2008 ; Trudgill & Hannah, 2008 ). 2 If the prevailing account were valid, this language variety would constitute a rogue grammar in the sense of Thomas ( 1991 ). However, the results suggest that, in this respect, the grammars of L2 users of English in mul-tilingual societies, just like those of monolingual speakers of standard varieties, fall within the compass of Universal Grammar (UG). In other words... what you're saying makes perfect sense to me and presumably other speakers of some broad "American English" because we're used to those formulations. English elsewhere in the world, possibly including wherever the blog author came from, does not necessarily follow the same rules all the time, especially if English is just one of a matrix of languages they use throughout a week, mixing and matching languages and grammars according to who and what they need to communicate. As an aside... if stuff like this interests you, the movie Arrival might be interesting? It's that rare pop-sci movie that tries to actually deal with alien linguistics instead of hand-waving it away with a universal translator/babelfish.

by ajkjk 4y ago

drc500free 4y ago

I don't know what's even considered correct in Indian English, but it tracks with some of the non-standard word ordering I see working with folks from the subcontinent.

acchow 4y ago

Merriam-Webster shows plenty of examples of usage at the top https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dump https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dump "He dumped his clothes on the bed. She dumped the contents of her purse on the table. I dumped the old coffee down the drain."

yupper32 4y ago
Dumped as word isn't the incorrect English. The formation of the question is the incorrect English. Correct: He dumped his clothes on the bed. Incorrect: Why he dumped his clothes on the bed? Correct: Why did he dump his clothes on the bed?
- filoleg 4y ago
  Another fix that could make the title correct is getting rid of the question mark. Then it just becomes a statement of "Why airbnb dumped RN."
  - meepmorp 4y ago
    Yeah, seems odd to a western native speaker because it's a statement not a question, despite the use of a wh-word.
- solardev 4y ago
  Minor nitpick, I don't know if there really is such a thing as a singular "correct English", especially when you're comparing across cultural groups (but even within). There are so many variations between American English (and its various subgroupings), British English, Indian English, Singaporean English, etc. It's a widely-used living language, and one without a central authority (language regulator, unlike many other languages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_language_regulators) So English just kinda grows and grows haphazardly. There are more people in India who speak English (Wikipedia estimates 30% of 1.38 billion, which is 400 million) than there are Americans or UK residents. IMO their particular usage isn't any more or less correct, any more than American English is more or less correct than British English. It's not a matter of being politically correct or anti-racist or whatever, just the observation that English has always been a hodgepodge of regionalisms and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, and by speakers/population alone, probably the American and British varieties will continue to shrink as other Englishes take over. Probably it's us Westerners that will need to adopt to the new Englishes rather than the other way around. Grammar prescriptivists and grade school teachers might disagree, but well, they are overwhelmingly in the minority already and will become increasingly more so.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    Syntax affects semantics. Seeing "Why he dumped his clothes on the bed?" you can guess that they MEANT to say was "Why did he dump his clothes on the bed?" But there's a bit of uncertainty there, was that really what they meant to say? Or did they mean to say something like "Why did he dump his clothes on the bed IS MY QUESTION" but somehow the rest of the sentence got lost. Syntactically correct sentences have typically a much more precise semantics than syntactically incorrect ones. One could argue that incorrect syntax means the meaning is anybody's guess. Point is when we read or hear language we must interpret it by assuming what we think the speaker wants to say. But if syntax is incorrect that becomes much more difficult. Therefor correct syntax is a god-send for getting your point across. Think about the way browsers interpret HTML. They allow you to deviate from the standard somewhat. But that causes different browsers to produce different visible output. Not a good thing. Maybe the coder thinks they are getting their point across, but depending on the audience, what browser they are using, the "point" can get lost. Best bet is to use standard syntax.

solardev 4y ago

I often see similar formations in casual translations from other languages. The blog is from "the immigrant programmers", so I guess that'd make sense. I am not a linguist but maybe this particular phenomenon is related to subject-verb inversion in a question sentence clause? Something like the stuff they're talking about on page 5 of this paper, maybe: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_wh-questions_in_L2_English_in_India_Inversion_as_a_main_clause_phenomenon https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_... (over my head) Like the examples they give include: > "What this is made from?" > "Who you have come to see?" > "I asked him where does he work." > "I wonder where is he." They all sound strange to me but are apparently common in some Englishes. There were many other giveaways in the article that you'd never see in everyday American English usage: "Oh yes, it happened!" (who says that) "giant Online American Vacation Rental Business" (...it's just a vacation rental website) "the, excessive use, of commas, everywhere"

iib 4y ago
It may be a form of "Euro English" [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_English

cercatrova 4y ago

Looks like the author is Indian or more generally South Asian based on the video and profile picture, and in that English dialect, it's more expected to write statements as questions like the title rather than "Why did Airbnb dump React Native?"

parasti 4y ago

Is it strange that it seems less wrong to me without the question mark?

solardev 4y ago
No, in American (and I think British) English, it's common to add a word before the subject in a question. "Why Airbnb dumped RN" does not have to be a question. But when it is, American and British speakers expects an "auxiliary", I think it's called... from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93auxiliary_inversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93auxiliary_inve... "Sam enjoys the paper" is fine. "Sam enjoys the paper?" sounds weird, like you're questioning the sentence itself rather than asking Sam if they enjoyed the paper. "DOES Sam enjoy the paper?" adds an auxiliary (does) and makes it more natural sounding, I guess, to our ears.
- jjnoakes 4y ago
  To me it sounds like this: "Sam enjoys the paper?" could have emphasis on "Sam" and sound fine - it is asking if it is Sam or someone else who enjoys the paper. "Sam enjoys the paper?" could have emphasis on "enjoys" and sounds fine - it is asking if Sam enjoys the paper or feels some other way. "Sam enjoys the paper?" could have emphasis on "paper" and sounds fine - it is asking if Sam enjoys the paper or something else. And "Does Sam enjoy the paper?" sounds fine too - it is asking a more specific yes/no question.
  - solardev 4y ago
    Right, but in all the "Sam enjoys the paper?" uses, you'd normally only do that if you were repeating something already said, and questioning a specific part of it. Like your friend said, "Sam enjoys the paper" and you're asking for a clarification by repeating and emphasizing a part of the statement. Otherwise, it's just easier/clearer to phrase it like "Who was enjoying the paper?" or "How does Sam feel about the paper?" or "What does Sam like to read?" But those constructions don't necessarily apply to other regional variants of English (especially if English is a second language for them). In that case they may be adapting their English grammar to be closer to the syntax of another language they speak. Several of us here, including myself, are guessing that the blog author may be Indian (I'm not sure, it's just a guess). If so, there are papers studying this phenomenon or something close to it (I'm not really sure... I'm interested in languages, but I'm not at all a linguist and this is way over my head...). I'll quote (emphasis added) one paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_wh-questions_in_L2_English_in_India_Inversion_as_a_main_clause_phenomenon https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265785678_Embedded_... > The corpus study reported here challenges a conventional assumption in the World Englishes literature concerning the grammar of L2 English in India: that auxiliary inversion with wh -movement (henceforth wh -inversion) is exactly the opposite of standard U.S. and U.K. English, being impossible in main clauses yet obligatory in embedded clauses (Bhatt, 2000 ; Mesthrie & Bhatt, 2008 ; Trudgill & Hannah, 2008 ). 2 If the prevailing account were valid, this language variety would constitute a rogue grammar in the sense of Thomas ( 1991 ). However, the results suggest that, in this respect, the grammars of L2 users of English in mul-tilingual societies, just like those of monolingual speakers of standard varieties, fall within the compass of Universal Grammar (UG). In other words... what you're saying makes perfect sense to me and presumably other speakers of some broad "American English" because we're used to those formulations. English elsewhere in the world, possibly including wherever the blog author came from, does not necessarily follow the same rules all the time, especially if English is just one of a matrix of languages they use throughout a week, mixing and matching languages and grammars according to who and what they need to communicate. As an aside... if stuff like this interests you, the movie Arrival might be interesting? It's that rare pop-sci movie that tries to actually deal with alien linguistics instead of hand-waving it away with a universal translator/babelfish.