Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language on HackerTube: recommended by 4 Hacker News commenters across 6 separate months, 2012–2025.
commentary · evergreen
A kinetic typography animation set to Stephen Fry's spoken essay on language. Fry argues against grammar pedantry and for the way language evolves, including the verbing of nouns.
HN uses it as the go-to short piece against pedantry and for language change, recommended whenever grammar disputes come up.
“I highly encourage this 6 minute take by Stephen Fry on Language”
10 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
> let them dumb down a language If you've not seen it, I highly encourage this 6 minute take by Stephen Fry on Language: ▶ this video And besides, while you may be honing a blade or skill, my Homing Pigeon is homing in on home.
in “Researchers home in on possible “day zero” for Antikythera mechanism” · View on HN
Take ~6min to watch Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography - Language. It is my favorite take on changes in English and addresses verbing of nouns directly. ▶ this video
in “Write libraries instead of services, where possible” · View on HN
> the engines also focus heavily on metrics like sentence length, vocabulary, spelling, and subject-verb agreement... The systems are also unable to judge more nuanced aspects of writing, like creativity. This reminds me of a wonderful essay/speech by Stephen Fry on the harm done by pedantry. I also feel that schools focus so much on a single structure of essay writing and similarly take the joy out of language. ▶ this video
in “Flawed Algorithms Are Grading Millions of Students’ Essays” · View on HN
On incorrect language use, I have long been a fan of Stephen Fry's take, with kinetic typography as a fun backdrop: ▶ this video In short, context, convention, and circumstance are all. Long live the solitary octopi.
in “What happens when an octopus engages with art?” · View on HN
While I tend to whinge at that kind of writing, I at the same time remind myself that Stephen Fry had a beauitful essay about how to use language, and how we can be wildly innovative with it. At the end of the day Shakespeare was the first to table a meeting and that must have sounded novel and too out there back then. Not everything will age well, but I would rather we try new things. ▶ this video
in “The Age of Distracti-Pression” · View on HN
That was kinda my point, I was not nitpicking -relative OP's- grammatical usage, I just thought it was convenient to refer to the author in a more specific manner since his details were obvious. I had no idea whether their -relative OP- :) intention was to use "their" in a singular or plural manner. Heck, one of my favorite Stephen Fry videos [0] talks exactly about this! Also, the videos you referenced are great :) [0] ▶ this video
in “How to Fold a Julia Fractal” · View on HN
▶ this video (Stephen Fry explaining his position on this particular form of pedantry, amongst other things). It rubs me the wrong way as well, since my parents (well, my mother; my father grew up bilingual, so precision in english was certainly not as strong a part of his upbringing) were quite insistent that I used the correct adjectives and conjugations in english as I was growing up. However, the less vs. fewer debate is over, common usage replacing 'fewer' with 'less' vastly outnumbers proper usage of fewer v. less; time to drop the pedantry as it is of nebulous benefit to begin with (in this particular case). "You can't pour a glass of <some obviously enumerable item>" really doesn't matter anymore, and I feel the difference in the adjective never really conferred any meaning at all (unless, perhaps, the item you were speaking of was not obviously enumerable, but I can't think of any reasonable examples of that).
in “Short men and fat women 'get fewer chances in life', research says” · View on HN
I am with Stephen Fry on this one. ▶ this video Language evolves over time, and I am no more confused by someone (mis)using "begs the question" than I am by someone using the modern definition of decimate.
in “Show HN: Hacker News' “most unique support email of 2014”” · View on HN
Sadly I left that part out of the original claim. My apologies for perhaps sounding condescending. Correction was imo: a) correct (was proven false by you) b) unnecessary - pedantry is only OK in strictly professional context, which I don't consider HN to be. This was omitted from original claim by my error ( ▶ this video ). I really meant to thank you for correcting me there i.e. "Thanks for that input". It might have came of as sarcastic, but was not my intention. There is nothing (of value) to win/lose in a debate. In fact losing debate is more enlightening.
in “Why You Shouldn't Interrupt a Programmer” · View on HN
It's one of my own pet peeves to rightly use its spelling, having been a GrammarNazi myself for a long time. But I seem to have grown out of that: ▶ this video
in “India Launches Beta Version of Its Data Site” · View on HN