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Comment by pinkmuffinere | Hacker News Reader

This is also a pet peeve of mine. However, I suspect this bothers us because we’ve grown up with standard “western” English (US/UK/Canada/Australia/etc). “How does X Y like” is common in other forms of English, some of which might even be native (but non-western)! For example, I bet this construction is standard in Indian English. Based on population alone, I think this is a losing battle; English is probably going to adopt the structure we dislike. That’s unfortunate for me and you. But I think fighting it is a fool’s errand.

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Because westerners are out numbered or because we embrace an ethic that is self deprecating? Connect the dots.

Because the conventions that are considered “standard” evolve over time to match the most common usage. Non-western English is probably already the most common English, due to India alone. Those speaking patterns have been relatively isolated so far, but online media brings it into the mainstream. My main claim is that it will take over the present “standard” usage, because of the sheer quantity (but not in an alarmist xenophobic way, lol).

Some examples that have become normalized for me personally, I think due to working with lots of international folks in tech:

- “i have a doubt” instead of “i have a question”

- “i will not claim X” instead of “i would not claim X” or “i don’t claim X”

- “this is not as X as compared with Y” instead of “this is not as X as Y” or “this is not X compared with Y”

- "it will anyways be fun" instead of "anyways, it will be fun"

I’m not sure if these are broad patterns, or just peculiarities of the specific crowd i hang with. And I don’t think these are standard usages yet, but I’ve become familiar enough that I say these sometimes, despite intuitively feeling that they are wrong.

Edit: i think most of the phrases i have adopted are from Indian English, but unsure.

If it’s the quantity, wouldn’t people just drop English all to gather? (I’m not a proscriptivist for the record, but I do like some non-English languages more than others. Hopefully that’s not too verboten to confess here lol.)

I don’t think it’s verboten! I prefer Turkish over French.

English will certainly continue to evolve, and eventually it may be dropped altogether. But for example, you couldn’t understand English as it was spoken in the 1400s. It is different enough that we have a separate name for it, “Middle English”. Many of the changes languages undergo are influenced by interacting with other languages. There’s no reason to believe English will stop now.

As to why English will probably keep evolving instead of being totally dropped — it is now the lingua franca for most of the world. It would be unlikely to “just drop” the most useful language 90% of people know.

I sometimes remove articles from sentences because my English is very far from perfect, but I tend to be wordy, and want to cut down word counts.

For example

  // this doesn't work because of LanguageService bug, see #123

instead of

  // this doesn't work because of a LanguageService bug, see #123

I disagree with the implication that "majority rules" is such an immutable truth that the minority shouldn't even bother fighting or expressing their opinion.

Languages evolve. It is foolish to think that you will stop the evolution. And also purposeless — there is nothing better or worse about my great grandfather’s English, my English, or my kid’s English.

I get it - I am not a hardcore prescriptivist. Language is defined by usage.

But you're going too far in the other direction. Like... language nihilism. It's OK to care. Language is deeply, unavoidably personal. Look at how people describe the feeling they get when they read "how __ like": "Itch". It's not only an academic opinion - it's also a piece of who we are.

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