Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

> I’ve heard whispers of a time when people could talk shit at pubs and not be audited by wikipedia on the spot.

Talk "shit" or "bullshit"? The latter we could stand to reduce. The former...well, I guess it is annoying that any dolt can Google up a list of 500 comebacks. So I guess the emphasized skill is in delivery rather than wit.

> Where cognitive energy would need to be spent to work out your bug, instead of copying and pasting the error.

I don't even know how com sci algorithm courses pose a challenge anymore. Google was barely a thing when I took it and when we occasionally stumbled on obscure papers with it (or Excite), it was like finding the teacher's answer book out in the open.

> Where you had to actually call your friends or family to see what they were up to.

This is not such a loss. I think back when you had to call people, your conversations had to be more deliberate (i.e. I'm calling Jane to break up with her/give condolences about her dead mother) and planned. Not planned out in what you were going to say, necessarily, but planned out in that you wouldn't just call up a non-close friend and have a lengthy conversation with them. Whereas with online chat and Facebook, I've had long rewarding conversations with people whom I may never had the temerity to cold-call about anything.

"Talking shit" can mean exactly the same thing as "talking bullshit", in the UK at least.

In the US, talking shit means saying something negative about someone. John said I stole money from him? He's just talking shit. This could include truths; perhaps I did take his money, but there's more to the story than John mentioned. John paid me money for a service I performed but he thought it wasn't worth what he paid. John said I'm a cheat when I beat him in poker, but that was just the way the cards fell. He's talking shit about me again.

Talking bullshit would mean knowingly lying. John paid me for a service I told him I could perform, but I was bullshitting him when I said that. I can't actually perform the service. The mayor campaigned on lower taxes, but he knew he wouldn't be able to change that law.

Here you can "talk shit about" which has the meaning you use (e.g. "I was just talking shit about my colleagues"), whereas just "he's talking shit" is similar to bullshit, except maybe a little less angry and more dismissive.

Yes, that's the same thing I was referring to. Talking shit (with no modifier) is, in my experience, an uncommon phrase to use in a sentence; the only time I can recall hearing it is when person1 is telling person2 that person3 was talking shit about them. In that situation, the "about you" part is implied, and you can leave it off. "Don't worry about it man, he's just talking shit." That implies person1 is saying person3 said something negative about person2.

Now, what I would be doing in a bar is "shooting the shit". This means you're just telling bullshit stories (wild, made up, inaccurate, designed purely for entertainment). I caught a 30" bluegill is bullshit, and I would only say that when I'm in a bar shooting the shit.

> Yes, that's the same thing I was referring to. Talking shit (with no modifier) is, in my experience, an uncommon phrase to use in a sentence

No, no, no! In the UK it is not uncommon! People over here are talking shit all the time, often not about anyone.

Indeed, we often like to talk shit every Friday night after work, typically over a few pints.

Though you may encounter the odd person in everyday life who is 'full of shit'.

Such is the British way, we tend to use these as terms of endearment just as much as genuine insults.

Similarly, my best friend is absolutely "a little shit" and I love him for that fact.

I think this chain just points out that fact that "shit" can be used in many contexts. Still doesn't answer the fact that the way the author used it is ambiguous.

I think that's why he qualified the statement with "in my experience", which means he's talking about usage in the US.

Language is a wonderful, complex, irritating thing. The same words in the same language meaning two different, completely context-sensitive things. The same word being used in completely different ways. Not being able to describe the use of a word without long, protracted arguments giving multiple examples of the usage. Even in the same county, the same language is used differently based on geographical region.

It amuses me to hear a US citizen use words and pronunciations I know are from the UK, just due to exposure to the BBC. In the US, Hyundai is pronounced "hun-die" or "hun-day", but I have a coworker who is very much an American who pronounces it "high-un-die" because the only time he hears the word is when watching Top Gear.

The Internet makes it difficult to tell which dialect the author is speaking, spawning these arguments and fostering communication between people 3000mi away from each other. That's a wonderful thing. Now if only I could figure out what a curry is and why everyone seems to love it over there.

I'm actually pretty surprised about the curry thing. Here in the UK we get so much US media (films and TV) that I feel like I have a fairly good grasp of what they have in America. Not having curry has shocked me though.

Do they not have curry or just not call it curry? Admittedly I don't think I'm ever eaten anything like that when in America, but never really thought about it..

Bullshitting is not necessarily lying. It's saying whatever you think you need to say to advance your objectives. Truth or falsity is irrelevant[1].

[1] Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit

I think it's OK. Someone can still talk shit at a pub and say something worth auditing on Wikipedia.

I think it's ambiguous, but the article probably meant shit-talking.

Or even just shit like urban legends. Like when my sister-in-law says, "you know Chipoltle is owned by McDonald's, right?" and in the time frame it takes for me to think I doubt that I've already looked up the truth on my phone.

McDonalds owning Chipotle isn't an urban legend, it was true but is no longer. In 1999, Chipotle was a subsidiary of McDonalds (http://www.chipotlefan.com/index.php?id=chipotlemcdonalds), but McDonalds was fully divested around 2006 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipotle_Mexican_Grill).

You should probably have used an example where you weren't smugly wrong, it WAS true at one point.

McDonald's once having partial ownership in Chipoltle like a decade ago is nothing like "McDonald's owns Chipoltle" ... But maybe you had to be there.

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