Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

>"Were are problems?"

What is this sentence? I had to stop reading here.




While I am not a native speaker I am trying to wrap my head around if I said something really bad or why exactly you stopped reading.

Where are problems was an attempt at saying it slightly more vague than where are the problems hiding. It was meant as an opener for the following breakdown of problems.

It could probably have been more eloquent or grammatically correct but I didn't think it would be a show stopper :)

Sorry, you feel that way I think it was an interesting exploration that at least got me to think about diversity and it's use as a business advantage quite differently.


The right way to say it is "Where are the problems?" (present tense), or "Where were the problems?" (past tense)

The issue with "Were the problems?" is that it's grammatically incorrect on a level that makes it Really Hard to understand, if not totally ambiguous. I honestly didn't know what exactly you meant until I read your comment explaining it in the other chain.

That said, I like the premise of the article, and how you break down the different types of problems. The idea that the value of diversity is in having different backgrounds, mindsets, and values which provide different perspectives is one that I share.

Maybe for your future posts, consider pushing your text through Grammarly or another English grammar checker to clean up your prose. Solid grammar is a force multiplier when it comes to perceived quality and readability of a text (don't take this to mean Perfect grammar, though. I think an individual's voice shines through inconsequential grammar mistakes).


[flagged]


On HN you cannot downvote someone who responds to you, so uh, that's not what is happening.


I apologize for the wrong assumption, it's just confusing why anyone else would downvote me for asking a genuine question that was also just informing the writer of the medium post about a mistake that may have confused other readers too.


Informing the author about a mistake is usually OK. But the "I had to stop reading here" line sounds dismissive and somewhat rude.

But I may also be wrong about why people downvoted you; sometimes it just seem random, so you shouldn't take it too seriously.


I didn't downvote you, but if it's any comfort I got downvoted too :)

I am however not going to change that sentence even though I know it doesn't sound (and might not even be grammatically correct) :)

You can think of it as a more open way of asking.

I.e. "where are problems hiding" it's instead of asking what is a problem" because I was trying to explore where they could be found.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: