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fortran77

I don't understand this.

> The thinks-their-technical users

English was not my first language and sometimes I get tripped up. What does this mean?

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They meant "thinks-they're-technical", which might clear things up.

Putting dashes between a bunch of words isn't really a correct way to do this, but it's a way to smash a bunch of words together and pretend it's one word. In this case an adjective describing the users.

It's perfectly cromulent to hyphenate words this way. Doing so causes them to become adjectives. For instance, you would say "fast-paced agenda," not "fast paced agenda," or "fast, paced agenda." The latter two have a different—and in this example, weird—meaning.

In this case, I think it's a poor style choice, because there are two verbs and an adjective being combined, but there's nothing 'incorrect' about doing so. It might be clearer to say "users who think they are technical," but fixing the mixed pluralization and incorrect use of "their" would go a long way on their own.

What you did there, it has been seen. :)

What? Hyphenated compound adjectives have been a standard feature of English for centuries:

https://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/hyphens.asp

I suspect the trip-up was caused by mixing up their and they're.

It was supposed to be "thinks they're technical". In other words, people who think they are more technical than they really are.

That looks like a misspelling that should have been "thinks-they're-technical users" i.e. users who think they're technical but aren't as technical as they think they are.

They think they're technical users, but really they aren't. Generally these folks are people who have skills in other areas and have a partial or basic ability to use some complicated software. However, they don't have well-developed computer skills but are convinced that they do.

It means someone who believes they have a high technical ability but in reality has a low to mid ability and know some relevant words. Typically they apply them incorrectly when describing a problem or solution.

I think parent meant "Thinks-they're-technical users", as in the users in question believe themselves to have more knowledge about the domain than they actually do.

I believe it’s misspelled, but meant to be “think-they’re-technical” as in, describing users who think they are technical.

Should have been “thinks-they’re-technical”

It means users who believe themselves to be highly technical, but are not.

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