Thanks for saying it. (Previously, on Lobsters.) The fact that this post was a self-repost from a year ago stunned me. When you do any repost it literally forces you to write a comment with the prompt:
What has changed or warrants new discussion?
(Not just that you think it’s still interesting or read it for the first time.)
Off-topic, but - I’ve seen the phrasing “how X looks like” (rather than, as I would expect, “how X looks” or “what X looks like”) a lot more, recently. I’m curious if it’s a literal-translation of some other language’s idiomatic construction, or due to some other cause?
I would attribute this to ignorance/bad education. My favourite example is that a lot of people say “I could care less” instead of “I couldn’t care less”, completely inverting the meaning in the process.
Other examples are ‘peak somebody’s interest’ instead of ‘pique somebody’s interest’, ‘All the sudden’, ‘for all intensive purposes’ (instead of ‘for all intents and purposes’), etc.
It’s language change. It (always) happens, in every language, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with ignorance or bad education. Meaning inversion is common; see also contronyms like “nonplussed”, “wicked”, “oversight”, intensifying repeated negatives such as “don’t know nothing”, etc. See also skunked term.
why English speakers sometimes use e.g. ”would of” over ”would’ve”, or ”try and” over ”try to”.
“‘ve” can be pronounced in a few ways, similar to unstressed “of” so less literate people mix them up. “Try and” is not a similar error, rather an older (and more limited) construction; many uses of “try to” can’t be replaced with it (“he tried and explained” vs. “he tried to explain”. When both work e.g. “tried and fought” vs. “tried to fight”, there is a stark difference in meaning though hard to explain (directionally like orka, with a meaning like “he fought as hard as he could”) See: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/try#Usage_notes and for a historical view: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/were-going-to-explain-the-deal-with-try-and-and-try-to
In addition to literal translation of a construction from some languages, it might be an intuitive attempt at a semantic distinction «look (without like) → perceive via vision, look like → have appearance».
I used to work at Google. One cool think I liked there is user profile pages. Those profile pages have a lot of funny badges, like literally thousands. All created by googlers. I thought it is a cool idea to have something like this for devs outside google. GitHub has a thing - achievements. Although they are cool, only a few on them exists. I thought it will be funny to allow users to create own badges on github. So I create my-badges - a moma like, badges for github.
I dont think this is about either art or VCS in any meaningful way. Flagging as spam.
Also, this user seems to post nothing but self promotion, I’m amazed they haven’t been banned yet.
Thanks for saying it. (Previously, on Lobsters.) The fact that this post was a self-repost from a year ago stunned me. When you do any repost it literally forces you to write a comment with the prompt:
Off-topic, but - I’ve seen the phrasing “how X looks like” (rather than, as I would expect, “how X looks” or “what X looks like”) a lot more, recently. I’m curious if it’s a literal-translation of some other language’s idiomatic construction, or due to some other cause?
I see that all the time, as someone from Sweden, where it’s the literal translation.
Then again, I don’t get why English speakers sometimes use e.g. ”would of” over ”would’ve”, or ”try and” over ”try to”.
I would attribute this to ignorance/bad education. My favourite example is that a lot of people say “I could care less” instead of “I couldn’t care less”, completely inverting the meaning in the process.
Other examples are ‘peak somebody’s interest’ instead of ‘pique somebody’s interest’, ‘All the sudden’, ‘for all intensive purposes’ (instead of ‘for all intents and purposes’), etc.
It’s language change. It (always) happens, in every language, and it really doesn’t have anything to do with ignorance or bad education. Meaning inversion is common; see also contronyms like “nonplussed”, “wicked”, “oversight”, intensifying repeated negatives such as “don’t know nothing”, etc. See also skunked term.
“‘ve” can be pronounced in a few ways, similar to unstressed “of” so less literate people mix them up. “Try and” is not a similar error, rather an older (and more limited) construction; many uses of “try to” can’t be replaced with it (
“he tried and explained”vs. “he tried to explain”. When both work e.g. “tried and fought” vs. “tried to fight”, there is a stark difference in meaning though hard to explain (directionally like orka, with a meaning like “he fought as hard as he could”) See: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/try#Usage_notes and for a historical view: https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/were-going-to-explain-the-deal-with-try-and-and-try-toIn addition to literal translation of a construction from some languages, it might be an intuitive attempt at a semantic distinction «look (without like) → perceive via vision, look like → have appearance».
I used to work at Google. One cool think I liked there is user profile pages. Those profile pages have a lot of funny badges, like literally thousands. All created by googlers. I thought it is a cool idea to have something like this for devs outside google. GitHub has a thing - achievements. Although they are cool, only a few on them exists. I thought it will be funny to allow users to create own badges on github. So I create my-badges - a moma like, badges for github.
Something I miss from Amazon, too.
xoogler here… awww moma badges 🥹