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Linus as one of the top 14% most vulgar users on GitHub
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- exDM69 13y agoGuys, you have to remember that Linus Torvalds is from Finland where the communication culture is a bit different. For example, the Finnish language does not have an equivalent for the word "please" so it's sometimes really hard to be courteous and polite for a finn. Linus' native language is actually Swedish with a Finnish dialect, he's from a bilingual family. But in any case, the tone of his verbal output is definitely Finnish :) Yes he sometime pisses someone off because of his blunt way of saying things but that kind of things happen when communicating across cultural and language barriers.
- StavrosK 13y agoHmm, so you can't ask for something politely in Finnish? How do you distinguish?
- nraynaud 13y agoI guess it's by not adding insults at the end?
- StavrosK 13y agoWell, then I've been doing it wrong. Fuck you. Damn!
- bad_user 13y agoDon't know Finnish, but words and expressions change meaning by context, not to mention the tone used in spoken language, which often gets lost in written words, that's probably how. It's interesting to think of differences between languages and how that influences culture. For instance in Chinese the verbs themselves do not change to express tense. Expressing tense, for example "I will do that", is made by usage of adverbs or putting the words in the proper context. Asian cultures apparently have a preference towards living in the present, probably more than any other cultures. Think Buddhism.
- abrahamsen 13y agoIf the knife is still in the sheath, the question is polite. At least, according to Danish national stereotypes of Finns. http://satwcomic.com/no-invitation http://satwcomic.com/no-invitation
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- asmosoinio 13y agoHere's an example, somewhat ordered by increasing politeness: Do this => Tee näin Can you do this => Voitko tehdä näin Could you do this => Voisitko tehdä näin Would you kindly do this => Olisitko ystävällinen ja tekisit näin A too literal translation of the last would be: Could you be friendly and do this. "Would you do this, please?" I think would work in English, with approximately same politeness level.
- StavrosK 13y agoAh, that's similar to what we do in Greek. We have a word for "please", but very rarely use it. Instead, it also goes "do this", "do this for a bit" (it's a sort of colloquial "do me a favour"), "can you do this", "could you do this", "could you please do this"? That was an interesting fact about Finnish. Also, in England, it goes "Do this", "Could you please do this", with omission of the "please" considered rather rude :P
- exDM69 13y agoYou can ask for things politely in Finnish but you can't translate that into English. Instead of adding superfluous words like "please" to the end of the sentence, in Finnish you conjugate the verb of the sentence to a "polite form" to indicate the intent. There's a dozen different forms to use, e.g. "imperative" to indicate that something must be done or "potential" to indicate that something might probably happen.
- StavrosK 13y agoThat makes sense, thanks.
- canttestthis 13y agoHe's been living in the US for 16 years, so thats not a valid excuse. Also, there's a difference between not saying please and being vulgar. I don't think you can dismiss this as merely a cultural issue.
- exDM69 13y agoSure, but I wanted to remark that it still probably requires him a conscious effort to be polite and to not sound like an asshole to a naturally polite american. Something he often forgets when there's more important business to worry about. The word "please" was an exaggerated example, but if you'd hear two finns politely disagreeing with each other you would probably call it "vulgar" or even think that they hate each other. And besides, it's not exclusively american people he deals with. He probably gets along fine with e.g. Russians who have a culture that is more similar to his own.
- vadman 13y agoA scary percentage of "naturally polite americans" feel entitled to to whatever they want with complete disregard for others' convenience, as long as they politely say "Excuse me".
- coldtea 13y ago>He's been living in the US for 16 years, so thats not a valid excuse. Not a valid excuse for what? Who said he has to be "excused"? To quote George Bernard Shaw, who told you the customs of your tribe in the US are natural laws? >* Also, there's a difference between not saying please and being vulgar.* As there is a difference between swearing and being vulgar.
- Daiz 13y ago>the Finnish language does not have an equivalent for the word "please" My first thought was "Don't be silly, of course it does!" but then I realized that it's actually true - we don't have a direct equivalent to "please". Funny how that goes (and I certainly don't use "please" any less than a native speaker would). But we do have plenty of ways to express politeness in its place, so I have to disagree with the "it's sometimes really hard to be courteous and polite for a Finn." There are certainly some Finnish manners, like the tendency to get straight to the point, which one could intepret as rude at times but that obviously wouldn't be the case with Finns communicating with Finns.
- __--__ 13y agoYou say you're disagreeing, but it sounds like you're agreeing. >"There are certainly some Finnish manners, like the tendency to get straight to the point, which one could intepret as rude at times but that obviously wouldn't be the case with Finns communicating with Finns." The issue is communicating with the rest of the tech community. I can personally attest that West Coast Americans, which comprises a very large percentage of the tech community, are extremely sensitive to anything that could possibly be perceived as non-positive. I'm from the Northeastern US, where directness in speech is valued and isn't construed as being rude. If something sucks, you can say "that sucks" without everybody getting bent out of shape. In SF, I've had several misunderstandings with co-workers where they assumed I wasn't happy about something because, even though I said "that's fantastic!" I didn't say it enthusiastically enough. As silly as it sounds, this has led to real problems for me in the office where people are genuinely hurt and are unlikely to work with me in the future. This is just the long winded way of me saying: for a non-west coast american talking to a west coast american, yes, it's difficult to be polite and courteous to their expected standard.
- sampo 13y ago> the Finnish language does not have an equivalent for the word "please" so it's sometimes really hard to be courteous and polite for a finn. Gee. Even though there is not a separate "politeness word" in Finnish (or in many other languages), this does not mean that Finnish does not have ways to express several levels of politeness. It's only hard to be polite for a Finn who does not know English very well. And it's equally hard for an English-speaking person to be polite in Finnish, if that person doesn't know Finnish very well.
- StavrosK 13y agoSo 14% of users are more vulgar than Linux? Who are these people?
- kenny_r 13y ago> I hate to say it but Linus does seem—as one of the top 14% most vulgar users on GitHub—to be a tad foul-mouthed (with a particular affinity for filthy words like 'mick'). Is mick a filthy word? Linus probably often refers to a kernel developer named Mick, which then earned him this spot in the top 14%.
- qwerta 13y agoOther explanation is that Linus is a racist and most linux developers are Irish :-) Honestly I lived in Ireland for 7 years but I never heard of this word. I wander if they included other offensive words such as 'root' (in australia) or 'bush' :-)
- vacri 13y ago'root' is only offensive if you're described as a 'dud' one ;)
- JonnieCache 13y agoIt's a racial slur against the irish. Somehow I doubt that's how linus is using it though.
- Peroni 13y agoIt's a racial slur against the irish. - Only in the US. If you were to call an Irish person a mick anywhere outside of the US you'd be met with a confused look and them re-introducing themselves with their actual name.
- philjackson 13y agoHah - what a fun tool! I'm surprised to find out I'm in the top 38% most vulgar users on Github. I'd always told my teams never to swear in code so I'm probably in the top 10% most hypocritical user pool... http://osrc.dfm.io/philjackson http://osrc.dfm.io/philjackson
- mtgx 13y agoIt seems his vulgarity surpasses his C skill!
- iambibhas 13y agoSeems the site does't cache results. And just hit the rate limit.
- seivan 13y agoHaha, I saw this yesterday, I thought it was funny. No need to read more into it. Also I suspect it's someone name, not the actual slur.
- asmosoinio 13y agoAnyone else getting this? --- Sorry guys… It looks like something went wrong! We've probably exceeded GitHub's API limits. How about you read about how this work and then come back later? Sorry! ---
- pramodliv1 13y agoWorks fine for me. Maybe your data wasn't cached before their API limit got exceeded?
- asmosoinio 13y agoI was earlier getting this for the original link for Torvalds, but now it is working again.
- lotsofcows 13y agoI think you're muddling up vulgarity with swearing. Personally, I find Linus' writing clear and concise with a good grasp of common English idiom.
- lotsofcows 13y agoJust checked a USAian dictionary - as usual you chaps are using well defined words with a clear etymology in as barbarous a manner as possible. My statement still stands. People who are scared of words need to be shocked into engaging their brain.
- freehunter 13y agoI'm confused. What word did you look up? And I'm not seeing the original statement that you are now defending here.
- coldtea 13y agoThe world "vulgar" of course.
- lifeisstillgood 13y agoonly the top 14% ! Well, Fuck me.
- zozu 13y agoTo bad we already managed to overload the site.
- mikeash 13y agoI love it. Top comment is defending his swearing, with a ton of attached discussion over whether or not it's really defensible. Second-ranked comment is pointing out that the statistic is completely bogus. Amusing to see what gets more attention and upvotes.
- naranja 13y agoMe too.I'm absolutely excited by the service itself and really puzzled how people stick on the some irrelevant and well-known details. Guys - anyone TRIED at least other user handles? Its fun!
- mikeash 13y agoThe site was down when I tried it initially, but I just tried it on myself now, and you're right, it is pretty cool.
- vacri 13y agoA page full of stats and relationships regarding the commit behaviour of one of the most important figures in computer science of all time, and the only one people care about is "how much he swears". Fuck that shit.
- onemorepassword 13y agoEquating ordinary swearing to "vulgar" is an American thing. I find it rather uncomfortable to repeatedly see threads in which Americans judge others (and each other) based on utterly irrelevant puritanical values rather than their contributions hitting the front-page of HN. Especially the utter irrelevance bothers me, this is not about stuff like government regulation or privacy or women in tech, where there are valid ideological differences to discuss. This is just about shaming people because they have different values. It's pathetic. We might as well be engaging in celebrity gossip.
- aj700 13y agoA European and multi-lingual version of facebook that doesn't enforce American puritanism rules on porn etc and torrents, would be more popular, like tumblr.
- aaronblohowiak 13y agovulgar (adj.) late 14c., "common, ordinary," from Latin vulgaris "of or pertaining to the common people, common, vulgar," from vulgus "the common people, multitude, crowd, throng," from PIE root *wel- "to crowd, throng" (cf. Sanskrit vargah "division, group," Greek eilein "to press, throng," Middle Breton gwal'ch "abundance," Welsh gwala "sufficiency, enough"). Meaning "coarse, low, ill-bred" is first recorded 1640s, probably from earlier use (with reference to people) with meaning "belonging to the ordinary class" (1530). http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=vulgar&allowed_in_frame=0 http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=vulgar&allowed_in_f...
- aj700 13y agoSwearing in a language other than your first counts a lot less. As if were to throw "merde" or "fick" around. In Sweden, while speaking Swedish, they will casually say fuck instead of "fan!" or "helvete!"
- rabino 13y ago"torvalds seems to speak only one programming language: C. Maybe it's about time to branch out a bit." Epic.
- naranja 13y agoIndeed - an pure sci-fi, too