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Do most people just not know how to write an interrogative sentence anymore? It is wild to me how often these fragments of questions appear on the front page.
by JoelMcCracken 1y ago
Do most people just not know how to write an interrogative sentence anymore? It is wild to me how often these fragments of questions appear on the front page.
I use this form sometimes myself in a dialogue, as it fits that context. But as an isolated story title, I invariably end up reading the whole sentence several times, trying to parse it.
- bawolff 1y agoI think Hacker news removes "filler" words from headlines, which is why it is so weirdly phrased. The original headline is different.
- floam 1y agoHN doesn’t do it but it does have a character limit: go to the submission form and paste the original title (“Did Lead Limit Brain and Language Development in Neanderthals and Other Extinct Hominids?”) and you’ll see too long. People lazily remove words until it fits instead of reworking the whole thing sometimes.
- krapp 1y agoHN does actually have automatic text filters to remove "extraneous" words from titles, even when they do fit. People have complained that the filters are too naive and sometimes destroy necessary context but for whatever reason the mods consider it necessary.
- floam 1y agoOh, TIL. I guess in this case it couldn’t have been since you can’t submit if too long but I was unaware.
- krapp 1y agoCould be one or the other, or both, but the filter's definitely there. Fair warning HN also automatically replaces submitted links with canonical links despite most canoncial links pointing to the original domain for SEO purposes. There is no warning or feedback for any of this, you're just expected to notice and edit your post after the fact.
- andsoitis 1y agoYou can edit the title after submission
- floam 1y agoI personally would have tried: Did lead limit extinct hominid and Neanderthal brain development and language?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- rplnt 1y agoThe completely pointless and oftentime confusing capitalization doesn't help, as usual.
- JoelMcCracken 1y agoSorry for the grumpy comment y’all/OP. I’ve had a migraine for days during my vacation week and it’s getting to me.