Agh. Please do not abuse English (or French) this way; what did they ever do to you? What you want to say is “Can I understand Jaynes’s PT:LOS?” This places the action where it belongs, with a human. A book is not “able to be read” by anyone. I am able to type, because I can perform the action of moving my fingers on the keyboard. Being read is not an action; consequently there is no such thing as “able to be read”. And even if there were, a book would not have that ability, because books do not perform actions. Additionally, that is one of the ugliest passive-voice constructs I’ve ever seen; and I’ve read quite a bit of unpublished academic writing. (And if you think the average journal article is awful, you should see what they’re like before the internal reviewers exercise their judgement, such as it is.) Finally, ‘moi’ for ‘me’ might have been archly funny or ironically pretentious the first two or three times it was used, in the sixties. The eighteen sixties.
Thumbs up to Benito for having the interest in these topics at that age. Rolf, why the rant against him? We should be encouraging to young people interested in rationality and bayesian probability.
Rolf’s comment is a fine example of the aphorism ‘praise should be delivered in public, criticism in private’. When I spot someone making a grammar error or formatting error or other minor error, I try to PM them rather than make a public comment. For two reasons:
People really don’t care, and a minor correction shouldn’t permanently clutter up comment threads. People reading Benito’s request for help don’t care whether people dislike the French. Yes, Rolf is right that it’s a little annoying and offputting. But if people don’t want to read his gratuitous use of French, they especially don’t want to read 5 or 15 comments debating it. So criticizing him with a public comment is wasteful of other peoples’ time.
Criticizing like that in public is especially likely to make someone slightly angry or to lash back or ignore it. So criticizing him with a public comment is less likely to accomplish the claimed goal of improving his writing.
I’ll note that, whilst I found Rolf’s comment mildly musing, it did not have a significant effect on the probability of me speaking like that in the future.
Gwern mentioning more in passing that it was a little annoying and off-putting, without being aggressive or rude about it, has affected me—I wasn’t aware it was either. I probably won’t use it again.
Agh. Please do not abuse English (or French) this way; what did they ever do to you? What you want to say is “Can I understand Jaynes’s PT:LOS?” This places the action where it belongs, with a human. A book is not “able to be read” by anyone. I am able to type, because I can perform the action of moving my fingers on the keyboard. Being read is not an action; consequently there is no such thing as “able to be read”. And even if there were, a book would not have that ability, because books do not perform actions. Additionally, that is one of the ugliest passive-voice constructs I’ve ever seen; and I’ve read quite a bit of unpublished academic writing. (And if you think the average journal article is awful, you should see what they’re like before the internal reviewers exercise their judgement, such as it is.) Finally, ‘moi’ for ‘me’ might have been archly funny or ironically pretentious the first two or three times it was used, in the sixties. The eighteen sixties.
Relevant SMBC.
Thumbs up to Benito for having the interest in these topics at that age. Rolf, why the rant against him? We should be encouraging to young people interested in rationality and bayesian probability.
Rolf’s comment is a fine example of the aphorism ‘praise should be delivered in public, criticism in private’. When I spot someone making a grammar error or formatting error or other minor error, I try to PM them rather than make a public comment. For two reasons:
People really don’t care, and a minor correction shouldn’t permanently clutter up comment threads. People reading Benito’s request for help don’t care whether people dislike the French. Yes, Rolf is right that it’s a little annoying and offputting. But if people don’t want to read his gratuitous use of French, they especially don’t want to read 5 or 15 comments debating it. So criticizing him with a public comment is wasteful of other peoples’ time.
Criticizing like that in public is especially likely to make someone slightly angry or to lash back or ignore it. So criticizing him with a public comment is less likely to accomplish the claimed goal of improving his writing.
I’ll note that, whilst I found Rolf’s comment mildly musing, it did not have a significant effect on the probability of me speaking like that in the future.
Gwern mentioning more in passing that it was a little annoying and off-putting, without being aggressive or rude about it, has affected me—I wasn’t aware it was either. I probably won’t use it again.