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Comment by xahrepap | Hacker News Reader

My wife has a saying, “you don’t get what you want unless you ask for it”

Similar I’ve heard “if you ask you might not get it. If you don’t ask, you definitely will not”

Even if the OP didn’t get their guitar, what did they lose by trying? Nothing. But since they were willing to put themself out just a little they ended up with something I’m sure they love.

There’s a fine line between this attitude and demanding from people to things you think you’re entitled to. But with the attitude OP had, I think this is a really healthy way to realize your hopes.

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As the say here "shy bairns get nowt."

Had to look closer into it, there's a nice audio file of it here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shy_bairns_get_nowt

Unfortunately the accent on that audio file is strongly US to my ear.

I googled and got “In North-Eastern English dialect, ‘shy bairns get nowt’ is a well-known idiom that essentially translates to ‘shy children get nothing’. Often used to encourage children (or adults) to speak up and have self-confidence”. The original commenter gidorah has a UK email address. https://www.wordsense.eu/shy_bairns_get_nowt/ looked like a reasonable reference.

Edit: here’s it said proper good - skip to 42 minutes: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UaErbstVKAQ Aside: The transcript feature on YouTube is amazing but the UX is soooooo frustrating - the feature doesn’t exist on iPad Safari - and the text is not searchable on YouTube iPad App.

I'm not sure where you're from but it's incredibly cool that you still use words recognisable from Anglo-Saxon (bearn and nawiht).

Swedish and Norwegian languages also/still use "barn" for "child".

It's Scottish or maybe northern English - "nowt" is more common south of the border but "bairn" is more common in scotland. The fun thing is that we also use "wean" (wee one) as another common word for "child" but with a completely different etymology.

Whilst I am from Southern UK, I live in the North East UK. Accents here are strong and vary quite a bit. DO NOT confuse a Geordie for a Mackem (or vice versa) at all!

It is interesting that there is a lot of slang that I had never heard befote moving here, but slang from the South is more widely known. A coworker suggested getting 'ket' for a meeting. I did not know 'ket' here means sweets (candy)...

Rejection is not a big deal, and you should just move on.

This is the reason I looked past the rejection argument in my reply below; because there is so much more to gain from sharing than to lose from rejections.

I don't understand why my first reply below is being downvoted. If someone disagrees and downvotes at least drop a note that would make sense. :-)

As they say here "No you've got, Yes you can get."

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