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Comment by SolaceQuantum | Hacker News Reader

I don't belive this is actually semantically meaningless. The pause in 'uh' is clearly used to emphasize the significant lack of information such that scientists don't even know the purpose of these calls.

For brevity and that this is not a serious/academic article itself, the 'uh' is a suitable shorthand for a casual audience. I myself am not a fan but I do not claim it is semantically meaningless. I grasp the full meaning. I just don't agree with it.

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>> the pause in 'uh' is clearly used to emphasize the significant lack of information

Yes but it is a clumsy way of communicating that.

Also, a post shouldn't be down-voted just because you disagree with it. It should be down-voted because and only because of inappropriate behavior. There has been no inappropriate behavior. Karma police please withdraw.

That it is clumsy is not the same as that it is semantically meaningless. My disagreement is that the statement is entirely incorrect.

Paul Graham disagrees[0] and the current site guidelines[1] don't suggest that you shouldn't downvote for disagreement. The guidelines do suggest that you shouldn't comment on voting in the comments.

I agree with the position that downvoting for disagreement is a net negative for any site that allows it; it encourages the comments to become an echo chamber and discourages people from posting interesting opinions that dissent from the majority opinion. But HN's guidelines don't prohibit it or even suggest that its wrong.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Its meaning is expressed by being spoken correctly, either in the imagination or out loud; as a poorly-specified representation of an expressive vocal sound, it's not meaningful in the same way that a real word would be. While it's not meaningless, it's certainly meaning-impoverished.

I’m curious as to your feelings on words such as bark, chirp, meow, splash, and mumble.

I think you fail to grasp my meaning. The inflection of "uh" in that sentence is a greater part of its meaning than the pronunciation of the word, unlike the examples you gave. Onomatopoeia is a fine way to develop new words; inarticulate grunts that communicate hesitation in spoken conversation do not translate well to writing.

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