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Comment by icambron | Hacker News Reader

I suppose you can still find that sequence of words, but I think it usually coveys happenstance, not intention, as it does here. This sentence reads as very dated to me:

> The original machine had a base plate of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing in such a way that the two main spurving bearings were in a direct line with the panametric fan.

In modernese:

> The original machine's base plate is made of prefabulated amulite, surmounted by a malleable logarithmic casing designed to line up the two main spurving bearings directly with the panametric fan.

Still not great writing but doesn't trip my age sensors. It's not just the "in such a way" but also the use of "of" for material composition. "A coat of wool" etc

Edit: reorganized for clarity

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I think "intention" isn't quite the right way to characterize it. I do think you are correct.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... shows mostly intention:

> "for the most part dApps are purposely written in such a way that they can be easily integrated with other dApps" - (2 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29730055

> "just like an auction (generally) wants to design their auction in such a way that people are honest about their willingness to pay" - (3 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29725278

> "you'll end up listing it in such a way that people will figure out what this position is worth to you" - (3 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29722240

Scanning to find one which was a closer fit to the quoted example:

> "The light from that line is then passed through a dispersive element (optical grating, prism) in such a way that a spectrum is generated perpendicular to the scanned line." - (17 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29557861

That's the only such I found after scanning through 19 pages / 4 months of comments.

That is, most of the HN comments use the phrase to describe a class of possibilities, or state the intention but not the actual solution, rather describe the intention behind a specific design.

Yeah, good clarification. I didn't have the distinction quite right. I just knew it smelled old

This might be pedantic, but your rewriting seems to assume intent where there may have been none. The phrase "in such a way" is adverbial, modifying "surmounted" in the original, but your "designed" is adjectival, modifying "casing."

Since the casing is supposed to be malleable, it might not have necessarily been designed to line up the bearings, and it was only through a particular way of surmounting the casing that got them lined up.

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