> If Ea-Nasir were alive today, he would be desperately trying to affix his brand to any number of products.
A dig on someone we know? He was making money by selling his name to put on towers, casinos, terrible steak, what else. He's working with Russians nowadays.
It's certainly a bad comment but it was flagged and killed. By "wars" I imagined you meant much larger threads, of the kind that we should have moderated and missed. If you or anyone have examples of those, sending them to hn@ycombinator.com would be helpful. Best of all while they're still happening! But after the fact is helpful too.
"Facts" is a red herring. There are infinitely many facts; they don't select themselves. Humans do that.
Even assuming that your comment was factual, it was still an off-topic provocation that would take the thread to internet hell. We ask people not to do that on this site.
> “The copper of mine, give it to Nigga-Nanna – good copper, in order that my heart shall not be troubled.”
> “May Samas bless your life. ... In order that your heart shall not be troubled, give good copper to him.”
“May your heart not be troubled..” It’s just a small sample of letters, but it seems people from 4000 years ago had better empathy than us.
Why do we not show each other this kind of courtesy any more? Why do most of our interactions today seek to upset someone or become upset instead of seeking accord?
The reason why we don't show any form of courtesy anymore is because there is no community. There are so many people on this planet suffering so much injustice that we may as well be ants to each other.
Really? I take this as evidence indicating basically the opposite - fundamental human nature, as reflected through our communications and business practices, hasn't changed significantly in thousands of years. Some folks might be courteous, giving others the benefit of the doubt in hopes they'll "catch more flies with honey" or, more-likely, due to pervasive social norms and taboos. Others might issue thinly-veiled or direct threats, hoping to coerce the desired outcome. Either way, there have been shady business people and the ripped-off, the scammers and the scammed, for going on 4 millennia, at the very least, and there really is no sign the status quo going to change. If anything, this should dispel our romances of the human condition. The form is immaterial to the underlying function of the communication. "I feel ripped off, please deliver the goods."
> The form is immaterial to the underlying function of the communication.
The form is very much pertinent to the outcome. If I come at you with expletives, it will produce a different result, even if just in your internal state.
That link is fascinating, thanks for sharing. Two minor things that stuck out to me:
- "Kosher garum" - didn't see that coming!
- "På stora svenska online casino kan du alltid hitta casino spel från Netent, spelen har översatts till många språk inklusive svenska." I don't speak Swedish but is this randomly injected online gambling spam?!
> På stora svenska online casino kan du alltid hitta casino spel från Netent, spelen har översatts till många språk inklusive svenska." I don't speak Swedish but is this randomly injected online gambling spam?!
Oh but we do. See, for instance, the forms of phrase "with all due respect", "bless your heart", and "oh you sweet summer child". Full of respect, kindness, and compassion.
Sometimes, when people make mistakes, people from 2019 remind them that they're like the great thinker Einstein, a sign that even though they believe the person erred, everyone believes that they are still capable of acting with great intelligence.
Truly, looking back two thousand years to the language of 2019 CE (near the invention of the Internet), one of us 5th-millennials must only conclude that true compassion began with that great sharing that was possible when all of Man could speak to all of Man over a single network.
> See, for instance, the forms of phrase "with all due respect","bless your heart", and "oh you sweet summer child". Full of respect, kindness, and compassion.
This basically means you are due no respect, your heart is black as charcoal, and you are as naive as a child.
"With all due respect" can mean 'you're not worthy of any respect, but plyed with a straight bat, it means "I'm about to disagree with you strongly and in a way that might jeopardise my career, but I have to say this, please don't take it as a personal attack'.
Usually that reduces to "I think you're an idiot, and here's why."
I think these constructions are fascinating. They're accepted as barely disguised aggression, used in situations where outright aggression might spiral out of control.
But they actually work. Even though everyone understands what they really mean, they're far less likely to lead to escalation than less polite forms.
“Bless your heart” in the Southern US does not mean you’re amoral.
The implication is that you failed at something because you are so pitiably stupid or incompetent that failure was inevitable. For example, you would not say “bless your heart” to someone who had already cheated you, but you might use it to suggest that you see through their scheme: “Bless your heart, but I’m not paying $10000 for a rusted-out Toyota.”
“God love ‘em” works similarly but mostly in the third person, as in “Did you taste the [awful] food he brought? Bless his heart/God love ‘em.”
I'd guess it's a convention of that society, and means no more than our (peculiar, in my view) manner of the writing of some letters starting "Dear Sir" and ending "I remain faithfully yours ...", or similar words.
This is actually really entertaining. I thought I had read somewhere that there are thousands of untranslated ancient Sumerian/Babylonian/Akkadian tablets. Does anyone know if this is true?
AFAIK most of what's been in European collections for ages hasn't even been transcribed. I remember Irving Finkel lamenting the utter lack of Assyriologists.
Ever since I came across the Proto-Zagrosian hypothesis [0] [1] and subsequent dravidian linguistics papers [2], I can’t stop looking at words like Ur and not make a mental connection.
Even some of the names here sound more plausible if I mentally substitute the letters with equivalent dravidian alphabets.
I was browsing Google maps around my home town and I coundn’t stop seeing the root words - Bangalore (Bangal - Ur), Mysore (Mys- Ur), Hosur (Hos - Ur), Coimbatore- (Coimbat - Ur).
I have no training in linguistics so I’m going to admit that many of these are probably just words that look similar. Any dravidian linguists here want to chime in?
I’m really excited to see how studies in Proto-Zagrosian evolve and what new connections we might find from it.
43 comments
[ 456 ms ] story [ 750 ms ] threadA dig on someone we know? He was making money by selling his name to put on towers, casinos, terrible steak, what else. He's working with Russians nowadays.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21571130
That’s one of the more extreme examples, but entire groups of people regularly get attacked here in blanket statements for their choice of tech.
I'll switch to HN China then...
Even assuming that your comment was factual, it was still an off-topic provocation that would take the thread to internet hell. We ask people not to do that on this site.
> “The copper of mine, give it to Nigga-Nanna – good copper, in order that my heart shall not be troubled.”
> “May Samas bless your life. ... In order that your heart shall not be troubled, give good copper to him.”
“May your heart not be troubled..” It’s just a small sample of letters, but it seems people from 4000 years ago had better empathy than us.
Why do we not show each other this kind of courtesy any more? Why do most of our interactions today seek to upset someone or become upset instead of seeking accord?
My first reading is as a veiled threat: honour our agreement or I bring trouble to your heart.
~1800 years later, and 2 millennia ago, the graffiti at Pompeii http://www.pompeiana.org/Resources/Ancient/Graffiti%20from%2... tells a similar (and somewhat more humorous) story but in a different context.
The form is very much pertinent to the outcome. If I come at you with expletives, it will produce a different result, even if just in your internal state.
- "Kosher garum" - didn't see that coming!
- "På stora svenska online casino kan du alltid hitta casino spel från Netent, spelen har översatts till många språk inklusive svenska." I don't speak Swedish but is this randomly injected online gambling spam?!
Yes, it looks like the page has been compromised.
Sometimes, when people make mistakes, people from 2019 remind them that they're like the great thinker Einstein, a sign that even though they believe the person erred, everyone believes that they are still capable of acting with great intelligence.
Truly, looking back two thousand years to the language of 2019 CE (near the invention of the Internet), one of us 5th-millennials must only conclude that true compassion began with that great sharing that was possible when all of Man could speak to all of Man over a single network.
This basically means you are due no respect, your heart is black as charcoal, and you are as naive as a child.
Source: many years living among the British.
I think these constructions are fascinating. They're accepted as barely disguised aggression, used in situations where outright aggression might spiral out of control.
But they actually work. Even though everyone understands what they really mean, they're far less likely to lead to escalation than less polite forms.
The implication is that you failed at something because you are so pitiably stupid or incompetent that failure was inevitable. For example, you would not say “bless your heart” to someone who had already cheated you, but you might use it to suggest that you see through their scheme: “Bless your heart, but I’m not paying $10000 for a rusted-out Toyota.”
“God love ‘em” works similarly but mostly in the third person, as in “Did you taste the [awful] food he brought? Bless his heart/God love ‘em.”
I think this may be a register (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_%28sociolinguistics%2...)
I see you're not from the South. Ask someone who is what "bless your heart" actually means.
How did they translate the "soooooooo" part? Were ancient people really using this kind of tone?
I suppose that must have been one way to be passive aggressive in cuneiform.
It was identified with Tell el-Muqayyar by Henry Rawlinson in 1862, situated near Nasiriyah in southern Iraq. 2)
1) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+11%3A31...
2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur_of_the_Chaldees
Ever since I came across the Proto-Zagrosian hypothesis [0] [1] and subsequent dravidian linguistics papers [2], I can’t stop looking at words like Ur and not make a mental connection.
Even some of the names here sound more plausible if I mentally substitute the letters with equivalent dravidian alphabets.
I was browsing Google maps around my home town and I coundn’t stop seeing the root words - Bangalore (Bangal - Ur), Mysore (Mys- Ur), Hosur (Hos - Ur), Coimbatore- (Coimbat - Ur).
I have no training in linguistics so I’m going to admit that many of these are probably just words that look similar. Any dravidian linguists here want to chime in?
I’m really excited to see how studies in Proto-Zagrosian evolve and what new connections we might find from it.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elamo-Dravidian_languages
[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7817/jameroriesoci.135.3.551...
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12284-011-9076-9