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I used to dislike the "this is why I love Hacker News" comment. It's not so prevalent anymore, but it was very common 3 or 4 years ago. And while we're on the
by sker 13y ago
I used to dislike the "this is why I love Hacker News" comment. It's not so prevalent anymore, but it was very common 3 or 4 years ago.
And while we're on the subject, I dislike the use of the word sure on nerd sites. I say nerd sites because I haven't seen it (ab)used so much on other sites or movies.
Basically, people say "I'm sure" to mean "I think" and "I'm pretty sure" to mean "I kind of think."
I just went to reddit and the fist thread on my front page had 3 instances of "pretty sure." I'm pretty sure it's the most common phrase and it gets posted thousands of times per day in contexts where the user is not sure at all.
- regularfry 13y agoYou don't see either as often here as certain other sites, but two more that are invariably abused: "Most people..." and "You've obviously never..." The former is almost always code for "Most right-thinking people who fit into my personal worldview, which I am terrified of breaking...", while the latter is "I've got some domain knowledge here which on face value contradicts the precise words you've just written. It therefore follows that it's impossible for me to be wrong about..." and is more often than not followed by a demonstration of exactly how wrong it is possible to be. Any time I see either of these, it's end-of-thread-time.
- GrinningFool 13y agoI tend to use such phrases as a shorthand for "I can say that X is true based on my own experience, but have not explicitly researched this topic and so am open to disagreement from someone more knowledgeable". On the other hand, expecting such nuance to come through in the phrase "I'm almost positive" or "nearly certain" (my preferred variants) is likely a bit unreasonable.