Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

Comment by chatmasta | Hacker News Reader

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Is it just me, or is this sentence difficult to parse?:

> A last-minute political compromise has headed off an effort to repeal a California law allowing workers to sue employers for workplace violations

I’m not sure what happened and who it benefits (also, since when does anyone say “headed off?”).

It seems like there is an existing law. Some lobbyists got enough signatures to hold a referendum via the November ballot on whether to repeal the existing law. They promised to withdraw the referendum if compromise legislation is passed. Now Governor Newsom has negotiated some acceptable compromise legislation with those groups. The article does not mention whether the state Congress has voted on the legislation yet.

The proposed compromise legislation increases penalty money to employees, from 25% to 35%. But it limits initiation of the litigation to employees directly impacted by the violations. The article does not mention how this differs from the current law.

Overall, this is such a horribly written article that one wonders if it’s intentionally obfuscatory.

I think it's just you.

The first paragraph is clear to me. There is a law that allows workers to sue employers. There's a group trying to repeal it. Presumably repeal benefits businesses at the expense of workers. A political compromise has stopped the repeal efforts.

To this native speaker, "headed off" is a perfectly cromulent term: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=headed+off Even if it's not something you might hear in everyday speech, I'd say it's commonly used in political journalism.

The article itself is written well enough, provides enough background and context to give you a general idea of what's happening without editorializing. In other words, it's decent journalism.

How could this article be less informative? A third of it is empty quotes from biased advocates.

Headed off embiggens us all.

Seems clear to me, but I read a lot of NYT articles. Supposedly both labor and business are satisfied. The article does mention how it’s different: more of the penalty goes to those affected but someone can no longer sue on behalf of someone else.

It's just you; the sentence is written in a straightforward manner using pretty typical vocabulary.

There's an effort to repeal law X; that effort has been defeated by a last-minute political compromise.

> also, since when does anyone say “headed off?”

Again, just you.

> It's just you; the sentence is written in straightforward manner using pretty typical vocabulary.

This sentence alone, is poorly worded. Is it straightforward or using pretty typical vocabulary? The qualification is unneeded, unless it's not typical. Perhaps, graciously, it's typical for a region.

The phrase "headed off", instead of "blocked" or "pre-empted", is unclear as an idiom.

> Is it straightforward or using pretty typical vocabulary?

Do you think these are in conflict somehow?

It's the term straightforward, meaning not unclear in any sense vs "pretty" (meaningless adverb or an attempt to hedge the next term) typical vocabulary. Typical doesn't even make sense in context, given the multiple meanings that can be derived.

These phrases are clearly in conflict. You've already demonstrated an atypical understanding of grammar, twice. I don't care if you disagree. Good luck with whatever.

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