The post is jarring because it says nothing of substance and it says it badly. Prompting people to communicate better is worth doing.
That's just wrong. I don't know what to tell you.
I'm from Ghana, if you took 10 random online posts from friends without names and showed them to me, I could easily tell you which ones are my Ghanian friends and which ones are my American friends.
In general, different countries have different cultures about everything from emoticons to grammar online. It's telling that you didn't realize this.
> English is not stagnant
No it's not, but potato means potato, and cancer means cancer. How you read it or speak it is your thing. And one of Quality's definitions is: "compliance to specifications".
I would like to believe that the audience here is mostly high quality audience, I have to admit that language barriers exist that would make some people seem less eloquent, but by your definition we'll end up having "Idiocracy" (what humour, food, health, etc. may become).
Why are you so worked up about the english grammar?
The problem with the above post is that it lacks substance, attacking things like using "um" in text is not productive.
Hacker News is an international website, we should remember that different cultures interact with the internet very differently.
I saw the shorthand and interpreted it as the poster probably not being from a western country rather than taking it as some personal slight or indication that the poster doesn't respect their audience on HN.
If the poster had made a more substantive point, I'd hate to see people attack them for using "um" or some shorthand here and there.