News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on London became the rest of the startup capital. Parent comment

Re:London became the rest of the startup capital by Quarrelsome on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @05:25PM (#46802478)
best reasoning I've heard for this is that English is subtext heavy, like Japanese due to the history of the aristocracy. The populace were in thrall to their feudal lords and the aristocracy as serfs and servant classes for so long, that being indirect has been embedded into the language as a defense mechanism to not upset the pay masters. We get the subtext but people new to our culture might not.

I remember a technological mess being present at work and my team lead bringing out the classic:

> it's not ideal is it?

or the classic Jeeves and Wooster valet/aristocrat relationship with Jeeves giving it the:

> as you say sir

> very good sir

with both statements being flexible but often being delivered with the dripping subtext of "yeah that's complete bollocks".[0]

Obviously this doesn't apply to the real working classes but then those types are not the sort to gain a STEM education.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s03Fq1nsbng

(The full scene is around 11:30 in the first episode and I think its captures a conversation of subtext and indirectness quite well).

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:London became the rest of the startup capital by Oras on Wednesday January 28, 2026 @05:30PM (#46802551)
> yeah that's complete bollocks

We say "interesting" for that

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:London became the rest of the startup capital by pjc50 on Thursday January 29, 2026 @06:32AM (#46808815)
> English is subtext heavy, like Japanese

My stock joke is that one of these countries is a feudal warrior culture and former empire that's obsessed with tea and saving face, and the other is Japan.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:London became the rest of the startup capital by FearNotDaniel on Thursday January 29, 2026 @08:53AM (#46810208)
> it's not ideal is it?

Oh jeez, I've literally just typed out a message on Teams to describe a situation where someone deployed breaking DB changes without the accompanied app changes as "a less-than-ideal scenario". Sometimes I forget I have to translate from British for the benefit of everyone else on the team (half in India, half in US, one German)

[ Parent | on HN ]