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johnlawrenceaspden comments on Rationality Quotes October 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (236)
I just don't think <-> I just think, or is this one of those American/British differences? Also, nice recursion in the grandparent.
No, it's one of those right/wrong differences. I changed my mind about how to structure the sentence -- from "I don't think X is quite right" to "I think X is not quite right" -- and failed to remove a word I should have removed. (I seem to be having trouble with negatives at the moment: while trying the last sentence, my fingers attempted to add "n't" to both "should" and "have"!)
Wait, American/British? I think we live within 10 miles of one another. Admittedly, I was born in the US, but I haven't lived there since I was about 4.
Ahh, the mysterious 'g'. Hi there. We really should have lunch sometime!
Yup, 'tis I. (No, wait, I'm two letters of the alphabet off.)
Yes, we should. At weekday lunchtimes I'm near the Science Park; how about you?
Consulting for the engineering department at the moment, but my time's my own, and I'm intrigued enough to put myself out. You choose place and time, and I'll try to be there.
It may even be that we have better ways of communicating than blog comments! I am lesswrong@aspden.com, 07943 155029.
Inserting a 'not' where it shouldn't be is not an American/British difference.
But is it not possible that whether it should or shouldn't be there is a matter of the dialect of the speaker?
In general, of course it is. (I think "couldn't care less" / "could care less" is an example, though my Inner Pedant gets very twitchy at the latter.) But I think it's unusual to have such big differences in idiom, and I suspect they generally arise from something that was originally an outright mistake (as I think "could care less" was).
And in particular, such a twisted usage does not fall neatly across the America/Britain divide.
Especially in this particular case where it was pretty clearly an editing error.