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Comment by felixthehat | Hacker News Reader

Us regular human beings call this 'fun' if that's any help to you?

OK, well that's how I read it: a jokey article (i.e. fun) that looks like satire (something that bites), but without any actual satirical bite or point. But perhaps I'm wasn't sharp enough to get the satirical point. And I didn't see it explained in the comments.

If it's just ragging on PHP's deficiencies, (a) that's old-hat, and (b) most of what the author teases about isn't actually a problem with the language.

It's just the author's dry, tongue-in-cheek British humour. He's not really attacking anything – just a bit of fun using English instead of American English.

The author is British? OK, well I'm surprised. Nobody in Britain uses the kinds of phrases he makes fun of. I enjoy dry, tongue-in-cheek humour; it's my stock-in-trade (except when I might be talking to foreigners, like here on HN; it can easily misfire).

I read the author as being a non-British English speaker.

> The author is British?

What ho, old bean. Yes, I am.

Haha! Well, evidently I read it wrong!

> What ho, old bean.

That's Jeeves and Wooster. And that was itself a parody.

I use some archaic phrases; I refer to "chaps", some disgraceful act being "a bit off", my hat is my "titfer" (cockney rhyming slang hasn't been restricted to cockneys since the 50s). But I don't pretend to be an Edwardian bourgeois twit, like the ridiculous Rees-Mogg.

I'm sorry I didn't get your humour; it's a drag to have to explain a joke.

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