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Comment by rwoerz | Hacker News Reader

Does this headline sound confusing only to non-native speakers like me? 1. "to warn someone to avoid something" sounds like "to urge someone to do that something" to me. 2. Should sci-hub be referred to as a "science website" like nature.com, quantamagazine.com etc.

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I'm a native (BrE) speaker, and it sounds perfectly natural to me, but I understand what you mean, I can see that.

Say you're about to drive over a cliff edge, the obvious thing I can do is 'warn you about it', but I can also 'warn you not to do it' because it's dangerous, etc.

If I instead 'warned you to drive over the cliff':

  - something else needs to follow - 'or else I will do something worse to you' for example

  - it means that you should (IMO - my *fictional* O!) do it

If you want that more active phrasing, the unnegated infinitive 'to drive', or 'to use' rather than 'to avoid' the site, you need to say something like 'caution against' instead of 'warn'.

It could have been:

> Police caution students against using science website

A warning is either about a bad thing:

> Science website considered harmful, police warn

Or a strong suggestion for corrective action:

> Don't use science website, police warn

> Police warn students not to use science website

> [The submission]

As a native speaker of British English I did not find the title confusing: I think the confusion is that the typical meaning of "warn to" and "warn about" are different.

"warning someone to avoid something" suggests that there is a risk associated with the thing itself - they should avoid the thing

"warning someone about avoiding something" suggests that there is a risk associated with avoiding the thing - they should not avoid the thing

(e.g., "HMRC warns people about avoiding paying income tax")

The confusion seems to be why they would post something so weak in the first place. Do they think the British public are stupid? It's makes them seem like they come from a banana republic.

I understood what they meant and English is not my first language but it could be worded better.

warn X to avoid Y sounds fine to me as a non native speaker.

Science website sounds off to me for speaking about sci-hub. The title felt a bit like police advised students to distrust science.

No, I think your confusion is completely reasonable. It was a garbage article.

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