Lessons from the Last Swiss Finishing School | Hacker News Reader

Lessons from the Last Swiss Finishing School

newyorker.com

33 pointssecondary13 comments

I loved the fact that they pointed out: The women weren't there to earn wealth but to learn how to look like they had inherited it. It's no surprise that there were so many Chinese there. Social status is an very conscious part of their society's psyche.

I thought that remark on the author's part was a bit flippant and uncharitable. The Romanian flight attendant, for example, was there to learn how to better empathize with her clientele, not to learn how to fool them.

Actually a pretty interesting article. Everyone who has ever met with an investor, for instance, has an interest in the underlying social dynamics. That appreciation seems to be what this sort of school tries to impart, rather than merely training people to disguise themselves as heiresses or whatever.

Is the spelling of "preëmptive" with a trema correct? I know of course what a trema does, but I have never seen it being used in this word.

Sorry for being off-topic. Actually not so off-topic, considering how often the word is used in CS :)

It's the house style at the New Yorker to use it wherever possible or vaguely plausible: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-...

The use of diaeresis is a stylistic quirk of the New Yorker:

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-...

It's a nice touch in some ways. Coöperate makes it obvious I am not referring to something to do with chicken coops. If I were not a native speaker of English I suspect words like that (and reëlect, etc) would be a challenge.

As a Swede "Coöperate" looks very weird, as ö is a letter very commonly used in swedish.

English used to have more of these handy characters (like þ) but sadly the language is being denuded and stripped. Even the subjunctive form is almost dead - most of the time it's "I wish I were there", not "I wish I was there", dammit!

It's just one of the douchey affectations that make The New Yorker such an unpleasant publication to read.

I don't see what's "douchey" about it, but it's certainly a pointless affectation with no sound basis in modern usage. The New York journalism establishment seems to be into those for some reason.

My favorite is when the NYT -- uh, make that N.Y.T. -- writes acronyms like F.B.I. and I.B.M. with periods that even the institutions themselves don't use. Some kind of obscure orthographical virtue signal, I guess.

I have little doubt they try to teach the nouveau riche some manners but the question remains: can they learn?

What makes you ask that question?

That was a joke, I suspect.

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