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Comment by tikwidd | Hacker News Reader

A couple of other English pronoun tidbits:

- The third person plural set (they, their, them) was borrowed from Scandinavian (it's pretty uncommon for languages to borrow 'core' vocabulary such as pronouns).

- Old English (Anglo-Saxon) also had dual forms of the pronoun. Those were lost by Chaucer's time though. Not sure if they are reflexes of early PIE dual forms or a more recent development from Proto-Germanic.

[Sara Malton] [1] has some interesting ideas about how the you/thee distinction developed in the semantic dimensions of power as well as familiarity in Early Modern English.

There are many new 2p. plural forms developing in English that vary regionally and socially, e.g y'all, you guys, yous, you'uns (-> yinz), all y'all.

[1]: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/6361Malton.ht...

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What value does abbreviation "PIE" add to a discussion for relative laymen?

I'm guessing it stands for "Proto-Indo-European", a phrase I'll bet nearly no one outside advanced degree word nerds (invoked lovingly) uses or has heard.

Sorry for the soapbox.

If you ever have studied comparative-historical linguistics, you know the abbreviation is frequent and necessary. So, the question is, what are the chances that someone familiar with it might use it and not even think about it? Your response assumed it was fully conscious. In any event, we're in the land of acronym pandemonium here, between CS, Data Science, Web terms, etc. PIE is a drop in a big bucket.

Medical, wow. The same abbreviation is used within different sub specialities frequently. The fact that any patients leave any facility alive when their doctor sends them for a test, with a referral that spouts acronyms, abbreviations and generally aliterate scrawl is amazing. Eg. Phx COPD, Ca 10/12 Tx RT. C+ CT ?PE. And assuming you can read it, this is a good one. Some specialists even invent their own abbreviations, diligently reusing existing ones. And then they are surprised when asking for an MRA gets an MR angiogram rather than an MR arthrogram. Medical abbreviations must die.

The point is that it's highly likely the subset of Hacker News that has studied comparitive-historical linguistics is small, and that the usage of field-specific jargon is exclusionary and obfuscatory.

I studied rhetoric and technical communication for some time, and know quite well the usefulness of field-specific terminology for initiated readers. This, however, is not a comparitive-historical linguistics symposium and, as a multidisciplinary forum, I find no reason we should not to expect commentators to write to their actual audience.

Down-vote all you like, it doesn't change the fact that jargonistic writing for general audiences is rarely necessary and most often laziness.

In this case acronym is not being used jargonistically, it's being used to avoid writing out "Proto-Indo-European language" and perhaps more importantly acts as a useful indicator that this is not a novel concept in the field. It is seen frequently and unambiguously in any discussion about linguistics.

I recommend you avoid throwing around accusations of laziness: if you're genuinely not aware that PIE stands for Proto-Indo-European language, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIE acts as a perfectly good source.

(I hadn't intended to make this such a conversation, apologies to tikwidd for building a mountain...)

I've assistant edited academic journals and spent years as a copywriter/editor at a consulting firm that worked in many specialized industries. That accusation was leveled with purpose and from experience.

This is not only about the acronym above, though PIE does have many meanings[1]. That an acronym has a specific meaning to a specific group is why it is jargon. That it is "not a novel concept in the field" further reinforces that and is justification for writing it out, given the audience. It's really that simple.

The primary effect of acronyms on a non-indoctrinated audience is to reduce the writing's accessibility.

Simply, this is not a linguistics conference nor journal forum, and it is inappropriate to assume the folks here will know field specific acronyms.

1: http://www.allacronyms.com/PIE

What should people do? Write it out in full once then use the initialism? Once per post or per thread?

Does it make any difference that it is spelt in full in the linked question?

> From the top of my head, Danish "de" (practically never used), German "Sie", Chinese "您", French "vous", Spanish "usted" are a formal way of addressing someone, especially if one isn't familiar with the addressee. Did English ever have this? It sounds as though Proto-Indo-European might have had this (based on my 4 examples), but perhaps someone can enlighten me?

You think the use of PIE is bad, just wait until they bust out the ASCII IPA.

(I am thick as 2 short planks but I've heard of PIE. HN should be a place where people like me need to work hard to keep up.)

I think recognition of "PIE" as "Proto Indo European" in this context is a reasonable thing to expect of moderately sharp people with a liberal education.

Even the ones studying linguistics on some language other than English may not necessarily be used to some random TLA, in the same way most of people in the world would have no idea which topic in schools is called PE in some north american dialect.

What does the Texas Library Association have to do with it? ;)

I knew what it meant and don't have any advanced degree. I suspect that's because the very first comment to the linked question is, literally, "PIE = Proto-Indo-European"

If you don't read the page people are talking about, don't be surprised if you can't follow the conversation.

That comment was added after this thread started, as I read through the comments before adding my own.

"25 PIE = Proto-Indo-European – hydrogen Jan 26 '11 at 2:57"

I'm referring to the linked page. That's the one you're supposed to read, not just the HN comments.

I don't think its possible to discuss linguistics at any more than the most superficial level without encountering PIE. Or the history of Persian Empire-ish area where it developed. Or computer related linguistics. Or the history of linguistics or natural language processing, since this discovery was a "triumph" about a century or so ago. People living in indo-european geography with frankly weird languages not derived from PIE are usually inordinately proud of it and glad to tell you all about PIE and how their weird sounding language isn't related to PIE, even if simply don't care. Research results occasionally make it into popular journalism and invariably discuss PIE "This is what language sounded like 5000 years ago, it'll blow your mind" type stuff. There are also "easy read" popular science type books like the David Anthony Horse Wheel and Language. Those are all separate areas where I've independently run into it. It seems I'd have had to work hard to avoid it.

There are probably others. Archaeologists would probably run into it and people into old english lit are likely to roll the clock back, perhaps genetic analysis of migration would inadvertently discuss PIE.

Its like demanding we talk in detail about an obscure deep dark corner of the C programming language without confusing slang like "pointers" or "function". Well, good luck with that.

Even worse this isn't a discussion about lisp lambdas this is specifically a discussion about a weird corner of historical linguistics. Demanding that it be presented in "up goer 5" format isn't going to work.

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