Cushman

61 ms·

241.
by Cushman 13y ago
It's a fuzzy line-- the old adage "a language is a dialect with an army and a navy" is more or less accurate. If you're the official language of a country or religion, or are used extensively in business or politics, you get to be "Standard
242.
by Cushman 13y ago
Slouching = laziness = a moral value, dude. The point is it's not a choice, and even if it were if efficiency were a primary driver of language then we wud all b ritin lk dis n im gesin u dont car 4 dat ether.
243.
by Cushman 13y ago
I have a sore memory of a recent lengthy debate on the concept of dialects, so suffice it here to say: It is utterly uncontroversial among linguists that AAVE, among other dialects which use double negation for emphasis, is a real English t
244.
by Cushman 13y ago
Academically speaking, that is a matter of some debate. Pragmatically speaking, it's easy-- are they speaking the language they grew up speaking? Then it's correct. What you call "broken English", assuming native speakers, are just poor (i.
245.
by Cushman 13y ago
I'm sorry if you feel I spoke too stongly, but if so it is because I feel strongly that your attempt to impute moral value to a vocal feature you know little about is unfounded and frankly oppressive. If you'd like to have a conversation
246.
by Cushman 13y ago
Thanks for the note! Although I don't think it makes it a bad example, there's no requirement that a double construction always be used in order to count. It being perceived as correct when used is enough.
247.
by Cushman 13y ago
> If we assume that speakers have conscious control over both their words and manner of delivery Whoa, whoa, back up. Why should we assume that? Some level of control, sure. Nowhere near absolute. And yeah, I'm offended by anyone who tr
248.
by Cushman 13y ago
Emphatic double negation is not considered incorrect in African American English or other English dialects where it appears. It is used regularly and correctly, which is no surprise since it is a feature of many languages. The reason it is
249.
by Cushman 13y ago
Well I wouldn't call them ideolects to their face-- makes 'em ornery.
250.
by Cushman 13y ago
Fair enough. I don't mean to belabor the point.
251.
by Cushman 13y ago
That is very much the point, I think. You can't judge the speech negatively on its merits, since emphatic negation is a regular feature of many languages. You can judge the speech negatively on the basis of who you think the person is , in
252.
by Cushman 13y ago
Personally I've observed many meanings in use. As an adverb it means "figuratively" or "approximately". As a hedge word it more generally disclaims that what follows may be inaccurate or metaphorical. It's used in the place of "to say" or "
253.
by Cushman 13y ago
Double negation is also a feature of modern English; the point is no one can claim speakers of Middle English, French, Afrikaans et cetera are ignorant or unintelligent.
254.
by Cushman 13y ago
Excuse me, who "warrants" the way you talk?
255.
by Cushman 13y ago
Don't people "voting with their wallets" send a very strong signal precisely because people's wallets are limited? That seems to argue in the direction of the article to me. It also doesn't seem intuitively obvious to me that there shouldn'
256.
by Cushman 13y ago
The claim is that likes are a flawed currency to represent what people like because the cost of clicking a button on a web site trades for an infinitesimal amount of liking, so your representation winds being nearly useless to predict rea
257.
by Cushman 13y ago
Maybe what I mean is wildly imprecise. The figure of 131 suggests a precision in years, but based on these projections it should clearly be in decades. Since there will likely be dramatic effects to running low on coins to mine, it's a pret
258.
by Cushman 13y ago
Is it really success when a monetary policy decision turns out to have been wildly inaccurate?
259.
by Cushman 13y ago
Sounds like junk science to me. Just cribbing from Wolfram here: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gravitational+potential... ...energy of 75kg at 1.5m = 1.10 kJ http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=kinetic+energy+of+75kg+... ...at 2
260.
by Cushman 13y ago
There are probably more than a few, huh-- it's the sort of thing that you know happens a lot more than you hear about. (To be honest I'd be down for a nudist hackathon, if it could be handled maturely... hah!)
261.
by Cushman 13y ago
If that's about the nutritional content of Soylent specifically, I misunderstood and agree with you, pending further evidence, because I want something I can be sure is healthy. Since that's precisely the same thing the G^nP you originally
262.
by Cushman 13y ago
> But my metaphor was a response to being sick of cooking the same meal each night. If you're willing to grant that "chug a Soylent" is as effective a solution as "learn a new dish", and is vastly preferable if learning to prepare and r
263.
by Cushman 13y ago
I'm just going to quote your metaphor again. >"After watching Batman Begins every night for 4 months straight, I got a bit bored with it". > Watch a new movie. But my problem isn't with Batman Begins. My problem is I don't want to
264.
by Cushman 13y ago
But you understand that you don't have to sit there staring at the shake for as long as it would take you to cook a meal, right? You just drink it? Look, however fast and easy it is to make your fast and easy meals, not having to do that is
265.
by Cushman 13y ago
I don't understand this metaphor at all. I want do go do something else . Shoot, maybe I want to go cook an elaborate and delicious meal! Why are you forcing me to watch anything ?
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by Cushman 13y ago
> Watch a new movie. What? Why do I have to watch a movie?
267.
by Cushman 13y ago
Paraphrasing from their pitch video: "If you can eat out with friends, you should. I love food. But I don't eat twenty-one good meals a week." I've seen before this idea that people would lose the ability to enjoy cooking or eating if it we
268.
by Cushman 13y ago
HN digs insightful, intelligent, or insightful humor. We're not so hot on flippancy, hyperbole, and unnecessary sarcasm. You really shouldn't be indignant to be told "your humor doesn't work"-- if you get told that, it's because it's true.
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by Cushman 13y ago
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nudist_on_the_Late_Shift (...and Other True Tales of Silicon Valley)
270.
by Cushman 13y ago
We're discussing this a bit downthread-- in my opinion it's not a realistic threat. To kill a blimp at a couple of km you would need a modern ground-to-air missile (and know how to use it), or mass small arms fire of similar expense. It wou

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