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Y Combinator Cofounder Says Using "Delve" in an Email Is an AI Giveaway

082349872349872 3y ago
> "You fear to go into that sibboleth. The dwarf delved too greedily and too deep. You know what he awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum ... stupidity in public." —not Saruman The figure of merit for email is not what wrote it, but whether or not it is worth reading.
foldr 3y ago
>The Y Combinator cofounder said in a reply on the post that he disliked the word because no one actually used it when speaking English. >"It's one of those words like 'burgeoning' that people only use when they're writing and want to sound clever," Graham wrote. I actually dislike this kind of inverse vocabulary snobbery much more than I dislike deliberate overuse of uncommon words. You can easily look up any word that you don't know. But you can never know which word is going to trigger an inverse vocabulary snob's ire.
- brudgers 3y ago
  I think it reflects Graham’s interest in the quality of technical communication (business communication being a subset thereof) more than anything else. That’s his background as a writer and essayist. It’s not a commentary on poetry or fiction. Of course Stephen King once applied it to all writing. Personally, it’s hard for me to buy King as literary snob (though his being a bad writer is a question about which people can reasonably disagree). These days I think of these as first draft words. They express my ideas, but are candidates of change when editing. YMMV. I don’t find it worth being angry about either way.
  - foldr 3y ago
    Stephen King was saying that writers shouldn't deliberately seek out fancy words just to sound fancier. PG seems to have a certain set of trigger words which are well-known and which many people would use without a second thought, such as "delve" or "burgeon".
brudgers 3y ago
Users on X also said the word "delve" was commonly used among non-native English speakers, specifically Nigerians. English is Nigeria's official language. "Non-native" is not modifying "English speakers." No, it's just Twitter being Twitter.

> "You fear to go into that sibboleth. The dwarf delved too greedily and too deep. You know what he awoke in the darkness of Khazad-dum ... stupidity in public." —not Saruman The figure of merit for email is not what wrote it, but whether or not it is worth reading.

foldr 3y ago

>The Y Combinator cofounder said in a reply on the post that he disliked the word because no one actually used it when speaking English. >"It's one of those words like 'burgeoning' that people only use when they're writing and want to sound clever," Graham wrote. I actually dislike this kind of inverse vocabulary snobbery much more than I dislike deliberate overuse of uncommon words. You can easily look up any word that you don't know. But you can never know which word is going to trigger an inverse vocabulary snob's ire.

brudgers 3y ago
I think it reflects Graham’s interest in the quality of technical communication (business communication being a subset thereof) more than anything else. That’s his background as a writer and essayist. It’s not a commentary on poetry or fiction. Of course Stephen King once applied it to all writing. Personally, it’s hard for me to buy King as literary snob (though his being a bad writer is a question about which people can reasonably disagree). These days I think of these as first draft words. They express my ideas, but are candidates of change when editing. YMMV. I don’t find it worth being angry about either way.
- foldr 3y ago
  Stephen King was saying that writers shouldn't deliberately seek out fancy words just to sound fancier. PG seems to have a certain set of trigger words which are well-known and which many people would use without a second thought, such as "delve" or "burgeon".

brudgers 3y ago

Users on X also said the word "delve" was commonly used among non-native English speakers, specifically Nigerians. English is Nigeria's official language. "Non-native" is not modifying "English speakers." No, it's just Twitter being Twitter.