Alicorn comments on Open Thread, September, 2010-- part 2 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: NancyLebovitz 17 September 2010 01:44AM

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Comment author: Relsqui 27 September 2010 08:03:14PM 2 points [-]

I just don't know how to organize things I talk about into "more private" and "less private".

Oh, that's a good reason. On a side note, I'm curious--have you made a deliberate choice to use the UK style of punctuation for quoted words at the end of a sentence (period outside, not inside)? If so, why?

Suggestions?

The only thing I can think of is to look for intersections of the set "other people might consider this too private to post" and "I do not consider it so." Anything in both of those is probably at least private enough to be interesting. Alternatively, I consider your other use of that box (adding something which didn't fit anywhere else) to be entirely valid.

Soup.

Thanks!

Comment author: Alicorn 27 September 2010 08:07:12PM *  2 points [-]

On a side note, I'm curious--have you made a deliberate choice to use the UK style of punctuation for quoted words at the end of a sentence (period outside, not inside)? If so, why?

I put punctuation inside quotes only when it is part of the quote. For example, I'll put an exclamation point inside quotes when I note that I sometimes greet people by saying "Hi!". (But then I put a period after that.) I am not conscious of this being a UK thing; it's just how it makes sense to me.

The only thing I can think of is to look for intersections of the set "other people might consider this too private to post" and "I do not consider it so."

Can you give me examples? The ones I've seen in the wild have not had any clear analogues to myself.

Comment author: Relsqui 27 September 2010 09:04:26PM 1 point [-]

I am not conscious of this being a UK thing; it's just how it makes sense to me.

Yeah, this is certainly logical, and like RobinZ I've seen other people do it for the same reason. It happens to also be what's taught in UK/world English, as opposed to US English, or at least such is my understanding. It startles me when I see it, though, presumably because the US rules were so thoroughly ingrained in me as a child that it seems to mismatch an otherwise good impression of someone's grasp of grammar.

In case it's not clear enough, I don't think less of you for using that syntax; I'm just probiing my reaction to it.

Can you give me examples?

Uh, hm. I'm not sure, actually; I don't know where your comfort zone lies! Sex is usually a good bet; I've also used that field for things I'm not embarrassed by but can be shy about mentioning because some people are dicks about it. Things I can remember having there at some point, or could have, include:

  • I don't know how to ride a bike (which was true until I was 23).
  • I don't drink coffee or alcohol--not because of any code of conduct, just taste.
  • I'm pretty difficult to bring to orgasm. No one has ever done it within a couple weeks of a first attempt.

There are flaws in these; the second one makes me sound boring, and the latter two both result in dumbasses saying things like "you just haven't tried the right drink/dick yet." But they're examples of things in the personal-but-not-too-personal set for me.

Comment author: Alicorn 27 September 2010 09:52:46PM 0 points [-]

I know how to ride a bike, but don't have and have never had a driver's license - but that isn't private at all. I don't drink coffee or alcohol either, but one's clearly stated in the sidebar and the other seems irrelevant and also not private at all (and I answered a question about it). And my analogy to the last case would seem to invite messages that, as you say, are not welcome.

Comment author: RobinZ 27 September 2010 08:31:57PM 1 point [-]

I put punctuation inside quotes only when it is part of the quote. For example, I'll put an exclamation point inside quotes when I note that I sometimes greet people by saying "Hi!". (But then I put a period after that.) I am not conscious of this being a UK thing; it's just how it makes sense to me.

I use the same notation, and have seen other people report the same for the same reason.

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 28 September 2010 12:34:07AM 1 point [-]

I punctuate the same way, and for the same reason. I suspect it's a geekishness thing.

Comment author: arundelo 28 September 2010 02:57:26AM 4 points [-]

Guy Steele & Eric Raymond (don't know which wrote this part):

Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much to the dismay of American editors. Thus, if "Jim is going" is a phrase, and so are "Bill runs" and "Spock groks", then hackers generally prefer to write: "Jim is going", "Bill runs", and "Spock groks". This is incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes); however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings with characters that don't belong in them. Given the sorts of examples that can come up in discussions of programming, American-style quoting can even be grossly misleading. When communicating command lines or small pieces of code, extra characters can be a real pain in the neck.

Here or here.

(The first link is to the copy on ESR himself's site, but the quotes are messed up.)

Comment author: komponisto 28 September 2010 01:11:16AM 1 point [-]

Me too. The mathematician Paul Halmos was an outspoken defender of this.

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