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> One of the main ways computers are changing the textual humanities is by mediating new connections to social science How good do you need to be at reading to

> One of the main ways computers are changing the textual humanities is by mediating new connections to social science How good do you need to be at reading to make sense of sentences like this?

marcus_holmes 11y ago
Exactly! I know what every single one of those words mean, but have no idea what the sentence means.
- trentmb 11y ago
  Data/text mining is being used to draw connections in social science. Example: Perform sentiment analysis on a twitter feed after presidential debates to try and infer who 'won' among the public. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_analysis
avn2109 11y ago
Actually this document is very easy to translate. For example, the sentence you've mentioned here means "Our funding agencies are easily bamboozled by computers and programming because technology is associated with fields that have right and wrong answers. We intend to leverage this fact in order to get more grant money."
trentmb 11y ago
It's a bit purple, but not unintelligible.
- _delirium 11y ago
  It also seems pretty easy to read to me (I'm a CS researcher). The only oddity I can find in the sentence is that "mediating" in this usage, meaning "serving as an intermediary", is a little jargonish. It's one of the standard dictionary definitions of the word, but using it in this way is more common in certain areas of academic writing, and it develops a bit different shade of meaning as a result. You could compare how the startup world uses "disrupt" in a more frequent and slightly jargonish manner compared to standard English.
im3w1l 11y ago
One of the main ways [something happens] is by [mechanism]. [something happens] = computers are changing the textual humanities [mechanism] = mediating new connections to social science. I.e. computers help connect s.s. and th.
niklasni1 11y ago
I don't know, but I have an MA in linguistics and I actually thought you were using that as an example of a sentence that was easy to read, as it's completely clear to me... I think I might actually talk like that sometimes.
nl 11y ago
I should really do some text analysis and generate an understandability score 😉 But more seriously, isn't that just the fact they are using a different vocabulary? Edit: Oh dear. I didn't realise Emoji really works on HN

> One of the main ways computers are changing the textual humanities is by mediating new connections to social science How good do you need to be at reading to make sense of sentences like this?

marcus_holmes 11y ago

Exactly! I know what every single one of those words mean, but have no idea what the sentence means.

trentmb 11y ago
Data/text mining is being used to draw connections in social science. Example: Perform sentiment analysis on a twitter feed after presidential debates to try and infer who 'won' among the public. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_humanities http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_analysis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_analysis

avn2109 11y ago

Actually this document is very easy to translate. For example, the sentence you've mentioned here means "Our funding agencies are easily bamboozled by computers and programming because technology is associated with fields that have right and wrong answers. We intend to leverage this fact in order to get more grant money."

trentmb 11y ago

It's a bit purple, but not unintelligible.

_delirium 11y ago
It also seems pretty easy to read to me (I'm a CS researcher). The only oddity I can find in the sentence is that "mediating" in this usage, meaning "serving as an intermediary", is a little jargonish. It's one of the standard dictionary definitions of the word, but using it in this way is more common in certain areas of academic writing, and it develops a bit different shade of meaning as a result. You could compare how the startup world uses "disrupt" in a more frequent and slightly jargonish manner compared to standard English.

im3w1l 11y ago

One of the main ways [something happens] is by [mechanism]. [something happens] = computers are changing the textual humanities [mechanism] = mediating new connections to social science. I.e. computers help connect s.s. and th.

niklasni1 11y ago

I don't know, but I have an MA in linguistics and I actually thought you were using that as an example of a sentence that was easy to read, as it's completely clear to me... I think I might actually talk like that sometimes.

nl 11y ago

I should really do some text analysis and generate an understandability score 😉 But more seriously, isn't that just the fact they are using a different vocabulary? Edit: Oh dear. I didn't realise Emoji really works on HN