Linus as one of the top 14% most vulgar users on GitHub
osrc.dfm.io
osrc.dfm.io
Is mick a filthy word? Linus probably often refers to a kernel developer named Mick, which then earned him this spot in the top 14%.
{{It's a slur in England.
I guess it's probably dangerous to call people micks in Ireland and Northern Ireland.}}
I'd say even Septic beats it (Septic Tank = Yank).
As in :
I'm not Listerine but GitMo horrifies me.
Listerine -> Anti-Septic -> Septic-tank -> Yank -> Yankee -> American
Translation:
I'm not anti-american but GitMo horrifies me.
Is it as in "taking the mick"?
Taking the Mickey Bliss -> Taking the [censored for fear of turning up in the top 17% of vulgar HNers] --> related to it being slang for being Irish? Maybe not then.
It seems that their cache is a bit too aggressive :)
Honestly I lived in Ireland for 7 years but I never heard of this word. I wander if they included other offensive words such as 'root' (in australia) or 'bush' :-)
Linus' native language is actually Swedish with a Finnish dialect, he's from a bilingual family. But in any case, the tone of his verbal output is definitely Finnish :)
Yes he sometime pisses someone off because of his blunt way of saying things but that kind of things happen when communicating across cultural and language barriers.
It's interesting to think of differences between languages and how that influences culture.
For instance in Chinese the verbs themselves do not change to express tense. Expressing tense, for example "I will do that", is made by usage of adverbs or putting the words in the proper context. Asian cultures apparently have a preference towards living in the present, probably more than any other cultures. Think Buddhism.
At least, according to Danish national stereotypes of Finns.
Do this => Tee näin
Can you do this => Voitko tehdä näin
Could you do this => Voisitko tehdä näin
Would you kindly do this => Olisitko ystävällinen ja tekisit näin
A too literal translation of the last would be: Could you be friendly and do this. "Would you do this, please?" I think would work in English, with approximately same politeness level.
That was an interesting fact about Finnish. Also, in England, it goes "Do this", "Could you please do this", with omission of the "please" considered rather rude :P
Instead of adding superfluous words like "please" to the end of the sentence, in Finnish you conjugate the verb of the sentence to a "polite form" to indicate the intent. There's a dozen different forms to use, e.g. "imperative" to indicate that something must be done or "potential" to indicate that something might probably happen.
And besides, it's not exclusively american people he deals with. He probably gets along fine with e.g. Russians who have a culture that is more similar to his own.
Not a valid excuse for what? Who said he has to be "excused"? To quote George Bernard Shaw, who told you the customs of your tribe in the US are natural laws?
>* Also, there's a difference between not saying please and being vulgar.*
As there is a difference between swearing and being vulgar.
My first thought was "Don't be silly, of course it does!" but then I realized that it's actually true - we don't have a direct equivalent to "please". Funny how that goes (and I certainly don't use "please" any less than a native speaker would). But we do have plenty of ways to express politeness in its place, so I have to disagree with the "it's sometimes really hard to be courteous and polite for a Finn." There are certainly some Finnish manners, like the tendency to get straight to the point, which one could intepret as rude at times but that obviously wouldn't be the case with Finns communicating with Finns.
>"There are certainly some Finnish manners, like the tendency to get straight to the point, which one could intepret as rude at times but that obviously wouldn't be the case with Finns communicating with Finns."
The issue is communicating with the rest of the tech community. I can personally attest that West Coast Americans, which comprises a very large percentage of the tech community, are extremely sensitive to anything that could possibly be perceived as non-positive.
I'm from the Northeastern US, where directness in speech is valued and isn't construed as being rude. If something sucks, you can say "that sucks" without everybody getting bent out of shape. In SF, I've had several misunderstandings with co-workers where they assumed I wasn't happy about something because, even though I said "that's fantastic!" I didn't say it enthusiastically enough. As silly as it sounds, this has led to real problems for me in the office where people are genuinely hurt and are unlikely to work with me in the future.
This is just the long winded way of me saying: for a non-west coast american talking to a west coast american, yes, it's difficult to be polite and courteous to their expected standard.
Gee. Even though there is not a separate "politeness word" in Finnish (or in many other languages), this does not mean that Finnish does not have ways to express several levels of politeness.
It's only hard to be polite for a Finn who does not know English very well. And it's equally hard for an English-speaking person to be polite in Finnish, if that person doesn't know Finnish very well.
I find it rather uncomfortable to repeatedly see threads in which Americans judge others (and each other) based on utterly irrelevant puritanical values rather than their contributions hitting the front-page of HN.
Especially the utter irrelevance bothers me, this is not about stuff like government regulation or privacy or women in tech, where there are valid ideological differences to discuss.
This is just about shaming people because they have different values. It's pathetic. We might as well be engaging in celebrity gossip.
Guys - anyone TRIED at least other user handles? Its fun!
My statement still stands. People who are scared of words need to be shocked into engaging their brain.
Well, Fuck me.
Epic.
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