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231 points frogulis | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.341s | source
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renewiltord ◴[] No.44568041[source]
Haha, the real reason is that people can’t get a joke. One classic I saw is that pg made some comment about philosophy and some other guy went “Looks like you had a bad philosophy class” to which pg replied “I’ve had many”.

Well, that’s funny in a classic pub humour way. Except the guy didn’t get it (and neither did many others) who went on to say “Many bad philosophy classes you mean”

Like, dudes, what did you think that was? Except the whole internet is full of this. Even the slightest of puns needs a second character arriving afterwards who repeats the punch line but with some obviousness baked in.

It’s just that people aren’t literate. And I’ve got to be honest, a lot of such casual wordplay is just beyond Americans (who are generally superior to the British in every other way). They kind of need to be looking at a guy with a microphone to pick up on the joke. Probably the Germanic influence.

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1. wat10000 ◴[] No.44571436[source]
I think the concept of "functional illiteracy" is key. Almost everybody we interact with these days (aside from small children) is technically literate. That is, they can be given words on a page and read them aloud, or they can hear spoken words and write them down. This is especially true online, where this is still pretty much a basic requirement for participating in discussions.

Which it turns out is not the same thing as being given words on a page and understanding them, or turning thoughts into words which convey those thoughts to the reader. That is a substantially rarer skill, especially for anything with any complexity.