
Linus as one of the top 14% most vulgar users on GitHub - areski
http://osrc.dfm.io/torvalds
======
kenny_r
> I hate to say it but Linus does seem—as one of the top 14% most vulgar users
> on GitHub—to be a tad foul-mouthed (with a particular affinity for filthy
> words like 'mick').

Is mick a filthy word? Linus probably often refers to a kernel developer named
Mick, which then earned him this spot in the top 14%.

~~~
JonnieCache
It's a racial slur against the irish. Somehow I doubt that's how linus is
using it though.

~~~
Peroni
_It's a racial slur against the irish._ \- Only in the US. If you were to call
an Irish person a mick anywhere outside of the US you'd be met with a confused
look and them re-introducing themselves with their actual name.

~~~
DanBC
EDIT: I was wrong! See Peroni's reply below. I leave my incorrect reply here.

{{It's a slur in England.

I guess it's probably dangerous to call people micks in Ireland and Northern
Ireland.}}

~~~
Peroni
It really isn't. I'm Irish born & raised and have lived in London now for the
last 4 years and not only have I never, ever heard the term used in a
derogatory manor, I can't imagine any context where a fellow Irishman would
take offence.

~~~
gadders
TBH I'd say Paddy was more common in the UK as a term for the Irish, but
neither are as common as Jock (Scottish) or Taff (Welsh).

I'd say even Septic beats it (Septic Tank = Yank).

~~~
Peroni
Paddy is definitely a lot more common but a bit weak on the scale of racial
slurs.

~~~
gadders
Not Irish, but as an Englishman I'd say it's maybe on a par with being called
a Pom or a Limey (which offends me not at all).

------
exDM69
Guys, you have to remember that Linus Torvalds is from Finland where the
communication culture is a bit different. For example, the Finnish language
does not have an equivalent for the word "please" so it's sometimes really
hard to be courteous and polite for a finn.

Linus' native language is actually Swedish with a Finnish dialect, he's from a
bilingual family. But in any case, the tone of his verbal output is definitely
Finnish :)

Yes he sometime pisses someone off because of his blunt way of saying things
but that kind of things happen when communicating across cultural and language
barriers.

~~~
StavrosK
Hmm, so you can't ask for something politely in Finnish? How do you
distinguish?

~~~
exDM69
You can ask for things politely in Finnish but you can't translate that into
English.

Instead of adding superfluous words like "please" to the end of the sentence,
in Finnish you conjugate the verb of the sentence to a "polite form" to
indicate the intent. There's a dozen different forms to use, e.g. "imperative"
to indicate that something must be done or "potential" to indicate that
something might probably happen.

~~~
StavrosK
That makes sense, thanks.

------
onemorepassword
Equating ordinary swearing to "vulgar" is an American thing.

I find it rather uncomfortable to repeatedly see threads in which Americans
judge others (and each other) based on utterly irrelevant puritanical values
rather than their contributions hitting the front-page of HN.

Especially the utter irrelevance bothers me, this is not about stuff like
government regulation or privacy or women in tech, where there are valid
ideological differences to discuss.

This is just about shaming people because they have different values. It's
pathetic. We might as well be engaging in celebrity gossip.

~~~
aj700
A European and multi-lingual version of facebook that doesn't enforce American
puritanism rules on porn etc and torrents, would be more popular, like tumblr.

------
mikeash
I love it. Top comment is defending his swearing, with a ton of attached
discussion over whether or not it's really defensible. Second-ranked comment
is pointing out that the statistic is completely bogus. Amusing to see what
gets more attention and upvotes.

~~~
naranja
Me too.I'm absolutely excited by the service itself and really puzzled how
people stick on the some irrelevant and well-known details.

Guys - anyone TRIED at least other user handles? Its fun!

~~~
mikeash
The site was down when I tried it initially, but I just tried it on myself
now, and you're right, it is pretty cool.

------
philjackson
Hah - what a fun tool! I'm surprised to find out I'm in the top 38% most
vulgar users on Github. I'd always told my teams never to swear in code so I'm
probably in the top 10% most hypocritical user pool...

<http://osrc.dfm.io/philjackson>

------
StavrosK
So 14% of users are _more_ vulgar than Linux? Who are these people?

------
vacri
A page full of stats and relationships regarding the commit behaviour of one
of the most important figures in computer science of all time, and the only
one people care about is "how much he swears". Fuck that shit.

------
iambibhas
Seems the site does't cache results. And just hit the rate limit.

------
lotsofcows
I think you're muddling up vulgarity with swearing. Personally, I find Linus'
writing clear and concise with a good grasp of common English idiom.

~~~
lotsofcows
Just checked a USAian dictionary - as usual you chaps are using well defined
words with a clear etymology in as barbarous a manner as possible.

My statement still stands. People who are scared of words need to be shocked
into engaging their brain.

~~~
freehunter
I'm confused. What word did you look up? And I'm not seeing the original
statement that you are now defending here.

~~~
coldtea
The world "vulgar" of course.

------
aj700
Swearing in a language other than your first counts a lot less. As if were to
throw "merde" or "fick" around. In Sweden, while speaking Swedish, they will
casually say fuck instead of "fan!" or "helvete!"

------
lifeisstillgood
_only_ the top 14% !

Well, Fuck me.

------
seivan
Haha, I saw this yesterday, I thought it was funny. No need to read more into
it. Also I suspect it's someone name, not the actual slur.

------
rabino
"torvalds seems to speak only one programming language: C. Maybe it's about
time to branch out a bit."

Epic.

~~~
naranja
Indeed - an pure sci-fi, too

------
asmosoinio
Anyone else getting this?

\---

Sorry guys… It looks like something went wrong! We've probably exceeded
GitHub's API limits.

How about you read about how this work and then come back later?

Sorry!

\---

~~~
pramodliv1
Works fine for me. Maybe your data wasn't cached before their API limit got
exceeded?

~~~
asmosoinio
I was earlier getting this for the original link for Torvalds, but now it is
working again.

------
zozu
To bad we already managed to overload the site.

~~~
synctext
Anybody has a cut&paste ready copy of this top-10 in their browser?

It's overloaded now.

~~~
junto
Surprised the result wasn't cached.

~~~
synctext
Cache: <http://svay.com/projects/FullHackerNews/#article-11>

------
mtgx
It seems his vulgarity surpasses his C skill!

