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Comment by stronglikedan | Hacker News Reader

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> I teach at Santa Clara University in the Law School. This spring I am teaching Economic Analysis of Law, and a seminar on Legal Systems Very Different From Ours.

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Doesn't answer the question

Is willfully obtuse

Nope. Is trying - unsuccessfully, apparently - to point out how arrogant and offending the use of "ours" is in a supposedly scholarly work: I am the byproduct of a so-called "western" culture, yet don't recognize the law system under which my country of origin operates are being covered by this "ours" used in the title.

"Ours" as in "the one the people attending this course currently fall under" seems quite obvious and non-offensive?

Arrogant and offending, how? Who is it offending? How is it arrogant?

Arrogant maybe if it said "the best." But it didn't, it said "ours."

Offending maybe if it said "Shit legal systems." But it didn't, it said "Legal systems."

It isn't really reaching to make a few assumptions. On an English speaking website, owned by an American accelerator in California, with a majority of American users, is it hard to assume that "ours" means "American?"

There are (at least) two different kinds of first-person singular: “me and you” and “me and some other people but not you.”

English, unfortunately, does not distinguish between these cases. “Ours” can mean “mine and yours” or it can mean “mine and that of some other people.”

The author clearly means the latter, and you’re getting offended over your own misunderstand.

Sure it does. It makes it unequivocally obvious that it's the American legal system that is referred to.

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