Etsy is canceling the fee owned to all sellers in Ukraine | Hacker News Reader

Etsy is canceling the fee owned to all sellers in Ukraine

blog.etsy.com

The headline is driving me nuts.

I think it would be more clear to say, "Etsy is cancelling the fee(s) owed by all sellers in Ukraine (about $4mln)"

Yeah. It's not actually the original title of the blog post either, which is 'Standing with Our Community When It Matters Most'.

Note, this is cancelled debt or fees Ukrainians owe Etsy

Yes, plus on Etsy owned services

> we are canceling the current balances owed to Etsy by all sellers in Ukraine

The way you wrote the title could be interpreted as Etsy taking their money, not the other way around (since as a seller, your "balance" could mean either unwithdrawn profits or the balance of fees that Etsy charges sellers)

I simply quoted a sentence from the article. By the way I edited the title now. Thanks!

The title should match the article's

HN guidelines allow some leeway (the title in this case, "Standing with Our Community When It Matters Most", provides very little value)

The title is currently unintelligibly incorrect English.

It's not that bad, just not how we would normally say this. I've seen much worse English from domestic American speakers. That said:

1. Fee is definitely better as its plural in this case. 2. While the fees are owned/associated to the sellers, it is indeed preferable to say the "fees owed by all" to reduce any ambiguity.

It is that bad, the meaning of the title is confusing and directly contradicts the article.

> are owned/associated to the sellers

"Owned to" is a incomprehensible combination of verb and preposition with no meaning in english. In addition the usage of the verb "owned" is itself incorrect and doesn't match the intended meaning as when ownership of debt/fees is discussed, the lender is said to be the person who owns the debt rather than those who owe the debt. The improper pluralization really doesn't impact the legibility of the headline.

I suspect part of this is related to how many non-native speakers confuse lend and borrow since many languages only distinguish between those two verbs via preposition usage.

yes, but the title used here on HN is bad.

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