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Comment by ta12121 | Hacker News Reader

To me, a speaker of U.S. English, "straight down" implies movement, making the instructions confusing. A non-motive indication of position would be "straight below".

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I would phrase it as "press into the screen with another finger" maybe. Common screen coordinates (to me) are left/right (x), up/down (y), and in/out (z). The instruction is trying to refer to the z coord, but using the common word for the y coord.

Or "Touch the blue rectangle with another finger, without moving the first".

Of course it implies movement. You have to move your finger to touch the screen. If it said straight down and had no qualifier, then it would be confusing as then down could have two common meanings. However it does have a qualifier within the same statement that makes it extremely clear that the motion described is not a motion across the screen.

Humans don't parse language the way computers do. When they see a phrase commonly associated with movement the concept of movement will enter their minds, even if a precise analysis of the sentence does not indicate movement.

I am dumbfounded. Do you live in flatland? Take me to the roundest polygon you know, they might get this.

Analysis of the sentence does indicate movement, and that is because there is movement.

This is because your finger needs to move down to touch the screen.

There are more than two dimensions of motion when describing fingers.

And this does not change just because a screen is involved.

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