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CertainlyWorse  No one is coming. It's just you.  2mo ago (text post)   1262 thread views

Speechcraft and Pithiness: Give your tips here

This isn't a large question. Because of the users we have here, I think we could all benefit from short sharp tips to edit our own words.

In this topic, can you provide advice on how to curate yourself when you throw words in speech and on 'paper'.

Links to 'speechcraft' sources are appreciated.

I'll start:

  • Take a second to think about how someone else would hear your words if they were you. (rule 0)
  • Curate and cut your words before you throw them.
  • "Brevity is the soul of wit" - Hamlet - Shakespeare.
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I maintain a git repo about the "programmer dialect of English" that I use to teach my computer science/data science students how to not sound like a n00b/PHB. It's niche, but many people here are likely to fit into the niche.

The document goes over phonology / lexicon / grammar / discourse differences in programmer English vs American standard English, but to give you all a taste, here's the top of the phonology section:

  1. RAG (as in retrieval augmented generation with LLMs) is pronounced "rag" not "R-A-G".

    NOTE: The word "rag" has only one sylable and is faster/easier to pronounce than the 3-sylable "R-A-G". The practice of pronouncing abbreviations as acronyms stems from the programmer's desire for efficiency in all things.

  2. ICLR (a famous machine learning conference) is pronounced "I clear".

  3. PNG is pronounced "ping" and not "pee-en-gee". This pronunciation is specified in the standard.

    The G in GIF is pronounced like the G in GIGANTIC.

There is no good reason for [pronouncing GNU with a hard g] other than to make identifying outsiders easy

It's from a song.

I gknew I was right!

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