What HN users don't mean to be

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22I+don%27t+mean+to+be%22&sortby=create_ts+asc

by pg • 14 years ago

442 128 14 years ago

hnsearch.com

endtwist• 14 years ago

From a cursory look, it seems like the most common (in order of frequency) are:

1. Rude

2. Pedantic

3. Snarky

4. Negative

5. An ass

6. A downer

7. A jerk

I'd love for someone to actually analyze the results and get the numbers, though.

stevenspasbo3• 14 years ago

I'm writing a ruby script right now, I'll post it if I can finish it before I leave the house.

bootload• 14 years ago

possible to add karma & created? Might be interesting to see if there's a relationship b/w users.

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

usually when people say they don't mean to be a jerk, they're being a jerk. not intentional.. but the person will think you're a jerk, so it's basically the same effect, just that you'll feel better.

dhx• 14 years ago

To anyone currently developing scripts to analyse comments on HN, please also consider use of unqualified opinions presented as fact. Statements such as "most", "a lot", "many" and "no one" fall into this category as per [1].

It would be interesting to whether a relationship exists between karma and excessive use of "most", "a lot", etc.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_vie...

zackattack• 14 years ago

Dude I honestly dream of some real time text parsing that seriously adds value to the quality of the conversation and moment. One of my goals is to make this for CompassionPit but I'd much rather get a killer solution from a 3rd party. I'd definitely pay for it too -- definitely at least $100/month.

stevenspasbo3• 14 years ago

"I don't mean to be curt, but what's the point of this?"

;)

Alex39174• 14 years ago

A) Demonstrates that HN now has a working search engine

B) It's art. It prods you into realizing new stuff about yourself and the world around you. Start realizing.

stevenspasbo3• 14 years ago

I put it in quotes because it was the first result I saw on the page

srbravo12• 14 years ago

I dont mean to be rude here but you should start realizing point (a) and (b)...

srbravo12• 14 years ago

Ha, sorry bad joke

Herring• 14 years ago

When someone says "but", it usually means "Ignore everything I said before the but." It’s like "No offense".

zalew• 14 years ago

don't be mad, but...

Mithrandir• 14 years ago

I wrote about this a couple months ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3469792) and it's generally true, but as thebigshane pointed out (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3472993), it doesn't always apply. Definitely good to keep in mind though

kalid• 14 years ago

Sometimes. I think it shows the person has enough empathy to realize what they're saying could be hurtful. I see it as making a point which isn't meant to be taken personally (and a signal the person is willing to engage in a discussion, not an argument).

That said, it doesn't really apply for statements like "I don't mean to be rude, but you're an <ethnic slur>".

lotharbot• 14 years ago

Sometimes it demonstrates that a person is just trying to soften the blow from a rude or insulting statement, but at other times it demonstrates that they hold a complex view which is most clearly explained by describing its limits or contrasting it to other views.

tep• 14 years ago

"that being said" is often used synonymously for that kind of "but": http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22that+bei...

ktizo2• 14 years ago

..first, let me point out, I do mean to be cynical. ;p

thekungfuman2• 14 years ago

I don't mean to be meta, but this comment now appears in this article.

digitalsushi• 14 years ago

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22probably...

thekungfuman2• 14 years ago

It was faux-clever enough that I decided to take the risk. :-)

kevinpacheco• 14 years ago

The proper response to most of these statements is, of course, "So don't."

mattdeboard• 14 years ago

Surprisingly there are more results for "viagra" than "autodidact"

redthrowaway• 14 years ago

Not surprising in the least. Turn showdead on, then have a look at the new queue.

davyjones• 14 years ago

Has happened to me more than once when my comments online have been construed as hostile when I never had the intent. Especially on this medium, where one's face and vocal tone cannot be communicated, I think such disclaimers are necessary (evil?). Also, there is the "Be civil" HN doctrine. So there.

tokenadult• 14 years ago

Comments asking for sources may be catching on.

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=%22cit...

After edit: I recall the brilliant use of "can be shortened to" in this example from the HN Guidelines:

"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. E.g. 'That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3.'"

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Similarly, a comment that begins with "I don't mean to be [X]" can be shortened to making the statement that follows the "but" in that sentence, probably for better rhetorical effect and persuasive power, especially if the statement is actually based on a reliable source mentioned in the comment.

chrisacky2• 14 years ago

This is pretty awesome. Is this going to be included in the main HN pages?

notatoad• 14 years ago

you mean the search tool? scroll down to the bottom.

chrisacky2• 14 years ago

I guess that's what happens when you are relatively new to HN, you miss the blindingly obviousness. (Could also be down to subconscious blindness I guess - It's not often if ever, that you see a search box in the footer).

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

And the other one: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22that+bei...

Interesting take on linguistic analysis.

benwerd• 14 years ago

Related: questions that have been begged: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22begs+the...

(Features pedantry and inexplicably purple microbes.)

scottkrager• 14 years ago

"to be honest"

One of my pet peeves...are you usually not honest with me?

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22to+be+ho...

cpeterso• 14 years ago

Would you believe me if I said yes? :)

pgroves• 14 years ago

I resisted posting my pet peeve because it's not really the point of the OP, but now I can't help it. Let me explain...

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22let+me+e...

The fact that there is more text in a comment let's the reader know more explainin' is on the way. No need to point out that you're about to elaborate. Are people worried we'll get to the end of their paragraph and not know if the next paragraph is related?

cubix• 14 years ago

It makes sense in face-to-face interactions, particularly when addressing are group. Sometimes, if you say something controversial, people will respond dismissively before you've had a chance to justify yourself. "Let me explain" is used as a way to reclaim the floor, so to speak.

For better or worse, people are transferring this pattern to written language as stylistic device.

cperciva• 14 years ago

I think "to be honest" is a euphemism for "to be blunt".

To the extent that people usually politely self-censor, yes, they're usually not being honest with you.

bhrgunatha• 14 years ago

I agree, I prefer "to be frank" as I think it avoids the misunderstanding.

stavrianos• 14 years ago

In any given exchange, the speaker is likely optimizing both honesty and diplomacy, trading one against the other as the situation requires. The phrase "to be honest" signals that the next bit is going to sacrifice an unusually large amount diplomacy for an unusually large amount of honesty. Or something.

It's a verbal flag and a hedging move. "I am about to say something potentially hurtful, but I am doing it with your best interests at heart, so don't instinctively retaliate" is kind of what it's used for. Reading too deeply into the literal meaning of the words doesn't really go anywhere, any more than with other verbal rituals. Compare to the greeting "How's it going?", often used even when the asker doesn't really want to know how it is going.

ElbertF• 14 years ago

HN users that hate to be "that guy":

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22to+be+th...

andrewhillman• 14 years ago

I think this shows that HN users are careful w/ words because they don't want come off negative and be down voted.

shingen• 14 years ago

I don't mean to be speculative, but I think it's always the "but" in the opening sentence that is really interesting.

DarkShikari• 14 years ago

It's an old rule that whenever someone says "I'm not racist, but", they are practically always about to say something incredibly racist. I think this can be generalized to all forms of "I'm not X, but" or, "I don't mean to be X, but", and so forth. "No offense, but, <offensive thing>" seems to also be a common variation.

Is there a word for this kind of linguistic construct?

( Possibly related: http://www.notracistbut.com/ )

ktizo2• 14 years ago

you just reminded me of one of those confusing stories from Godel Esher Bach.

jacobolus3• 14 years ago

I think your analysis is too glib here. [And since PG seems to be implying the same thing, that goes for him too.]

It’s typically a way of expressing anger/displeasure/etc. without turning the comment into a personal insult. If I say “I don’t mean to be rude, but you made a grammatical mistake”, or “I don’t mean to be harsh, but your idea doesn’t make sense” what I mean in the former case is something like “anyone could make that mistake, please don’t take it personally, but I figured you’d like to know”, or in the latter case, “you need to clarify your idea, because you’re losing your audience; I don’t want to imply it doesn’t have any merit, but as currently explained the merit doesn’t shine through”.

Being able to make quick softening caveats without taking up a paragraph is very useful, and our language is more nuanced and powerful for having these constructions.

cyoste• 14 years ago

My problem with this softening caveat is that the speaker acknowledges that he will present his argument in a way that will offend/sound rude/make him look like a jerk. Instead of priming my listener for thinking I'm rude/a jerk/etc. through admitting that I am, I'll just think of another way to gently criticize. Playing to one's emotions is all about being convincing, and "I don't mean to be..." is an unconvincing phrase.

davorak• 14 years ago

I agree, part of the difficulty comes in when people use such statements not to soften the blow to the people they are communicating to but to soften any negative reaction people are going to inflict on them for a negative or criticizing statement.

It is then easy for some people to read such a statement as "I want to make a rude statement, but not have people treat me as having just said something rude." or even "I want to hurt you, but not have people hurt me in response."

The nature of text only communication with long turn around time means it is often for some to tell in between the two situations above. This is especially so for anyone who goes out of there way to blur the lines between the two.

sedev• 14 years ago

I'd argue that "I don't mean to X ..." has actually fallen victim to the euphemism treadmill ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism#Euphemism_treadmill ). It can still be used earnestly for its original meaning, but that usage has been overtaken by the usage where someone essentially says "I'm not racist but - " and then proceeds to make a racist remark. This leads to the situation that your parent comment points out.

Language, of course, varies, and we should keep in mind that some uses tend to crowd out others - but I definitely think that this is something like the euphemism treadmill at work.

Alex39174• 14 years ago

Etymologically the word obvious comes from ob + via, in other words something blocking the path (to understanding). But in modern usage it's of course used to mean the opposite, something that's trivially easy to see. Though ironically most propositions prefaced by 'obviously' are anything but.

Anyway, if no such word exists, I'd propose propose calling them obvianyms, after what is perhaps the best-known example of the phenomenon. Plus, the fact that the term is actually an anti-cognate adds a third layer of irony, which is kind of cool in and of itself.

gruseom3• 14 years ago

the word obvious comes from ob + via, in other words something blocking the path (to understanding)

Are you sure it meant blocking understanding? I thought it was more like "in front of you", as in "you can't miss it".

According to http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=obvious, the original meaning was "commonplace", i.e. something you're likely to encounter along the way, and the modern meaning "evident" doesn't appear until the 1630s.

kmfrk• 14 years ago

I think it's just an acknowledgement of the ambiguity of tone in the written word and of the tendency of people to always take away the most offensive interpretation of the comment.

Some people use it as a preface to cushion their unfiltered invective, but it's in everyone's interest to give people the benefit of the doubt in recognition of the ambiguity in what we say.

waqf• 14 years ago

Paralipsis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralipsis), or parasiopesis or præteritio as it was called when I was in school, means something very like what you describe.

flashingleds• 14 years ago

There was a great line in the old TV show Pretender along the lines of "It's my observation that anybody who begins a sentence "with all due respect" typically doesn't have it"

I've always interpreted prefaces like that (along with its relatives "with all due respect" or the suffix "I'm just saying") as a way of turning the sentence into "This is an objective observation that should be made; don't blame the messenger". Used well it's a good way to strip subjectivity from some objective facts, used poorly it's a good way to project a subjective interpretation onto objective facts.

lucisferre• 14 years ago

I actually enjoy calling out passive aggressive HN comments like that. I probably should see a shrink.

rdl• 14 years ago

And when someone start a sentence with "Honestly, ", it is usually a lie.

catshirt• 14 years ago

quite different, since honesty and rudeness are so often conflated. racism or not is a bit more clear.

not that it invalidates your point, but does provide a credible reason to preface something with "i don't mean to be..."

stock_toaster• 14 years ago

I vaguely recall something from some sociology/linguistics/critical-reasoning thing I read once, but cannot recall the context or if there was a name given to it.

It was discussed as a subconscious (sometimes) way to shift blame away from the speaker as an attempt to not violate (or lessen the violation of) some social norm.

Almost seems like a cross between hedging and an assurance expression ("Everyone knows that..." or "Any seasoned developer would....").

Wish I could remember more. :/

v0cab• 14 years ago

Perhaps you have different ideas about what racism is? Originally it meant to consider certain races inferior.

staunch2• 14 years ago

I assume this is related to PG's disappointment with HN'ers ragging on companies when they first launch.

primigenus2• 14 years ago

Why do you have to assume that? Can't it just be that PG was talking to someone, this came up, he wondered what the results would be, did the search, and thought it was interesting enough to share? You know, like any hacker probably would?

staunch2• 14 years ago

Perfectly possible. Just seemed to coincide with this post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3658797

overcyn• 14 years ago

I don't see anything wrong with this. There are a lot of posts on HN are looking for feedback, and criticism can very easily be mistaken for aggressiveness. Sure rudeness is rudeness but prepending "I don't mean to be..." in front of your sentences don't make it so.

primigenus2• 14 years ago

I used to start sentences with "No offense, but..." when I felt I was going to say something controversial until a coworker pointed out that the only reason what I was saying was controversial was because I prefaced it with "No offense, but...".

So now I don't say that anymore. I just say what I mean and people aren't as likely to be offended.

thought_alarm• 14 years ago

The earliest use of "sheeple" was from user "stcredzero" almost 4 1/2 years, in a comment that, unsurprisingly, mentions John C. Dvorak.

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=sheeple&...

Gosh, this is a terrific resource. It's almost as much fun as Google's Usenet archive, back when it actually used to work.

PakG1• 14 years ago

Had to do it. :) http://xkcd.com/1013/

jacobolus3• 14 years ago

The earliest use of “sheeple” was decades ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheeple

Mavyrk2• 14 years ago

When reading his comment it was apparent to me that he was speaking in context to the matter at hand (delving into hnsearch.)

J3L2404• 14 years ago

The eloquent being so obtuse.

donohoe• 14 years ago

I don't mean to be in the first page of results, but I couldn't help it

petercooper• 14 years ago

A couple of years ago, we discussed pg's use of "it turns out" here on HN. It turns out a lot of people enjoy the phrase still :-) http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=%22it+...

And the old discussion for context: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1162965

msutherl• 14 years ago

Douglas Adams' final, and posthumously finished and published book, The Salmon of Doubt, discusses in depth the great utility of the phrase "it turns out".

molecule• 14 years ago

357 things HN users are "just sayin"

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22just+say...

joejohnson2• 14 years ago

And your comment is 358!

bicknergseng• 14 years ago

Amazing how this thread took over the whole first page of results from that search.

There's a few things that are interesting about this whole thing though.

First, that HN's users are this good. Many other communities across the web eventually degrade into a news entertainment troll parties, sometimes needing to be removed in order to preserve some kind of dignity on the mother site. I'm sure there are worst things said here, but they are very much the exception.

The phrase itself also got me thinking about how people express things on the web. I imagine the majority of comments with that phrase have some malicious intent, but there is also the possibility that whatever idea the user is trying to convey is something not easily expressed in text through the internet impersonally. For example, a conversation on racial stereotypes will inherently have racist undertones, but it is entirely possible that people want to discuss it genuinely without meaning to offend people. Part of the problem is that it's very difficult to communicate things like sincerity, empathy, etc. via plaintext. Another part of the problem is that people are very...willing...to be offended... though I haven't decided how much of a role the internet plays from this angle.

One takeaway: if you aren't meaning to offend people, choose better words on the internet. It's likely the easiest way of saying something is offensive and will offend.

thaumaturgy2• 14 years ago

Well, "rude" is the clear winner, with 54 occurrences (and one "intentionally rude"). Runners-up:

    harsh                           21 ("overly harsh": 2; "too harsh: 1)
    negative                        13 ("unduly negative": 1; "completely negative": 1; "overly negative": 2; "negative Nancy": 2; "too negative": 2; "totally negative": 2; "intentionally negative": 1)
    snarky                          12
    overly critical                 11 ("too critical": 3; "critical": 3)

Other common phrases:

    an ass                          8
    pedantic                        8
    argumentative                   8
    insulting                       6
    a downer                        6 ("(a) Debbie Downer": 2; "down": 1)
    dismissive                      6
    flippant                        6 ("flip": 3)
    offensive                       7 ("blatantly offensive": 1)
    cynical                         5 ("overly cynical": 1)
    condescending                   5
    glib                            5
    a jerk                          5
    mean                            4
    pessimistic                     4 ("overly pessimistic": 1)
    that guy                        4
    crass                           3
    curt                            3
    a hater                         3
    disrespectful                   3
    patronizing                     3
    presumptuous                    3
    nit-picky / nitpicky            3

Terms that were only used twice: obnoxious, picky, insensitive ("culturally insensitive": 1), discouraging, crude, impolite, preachy, a tease, adversarial, coy.

HN has quite the vocabulary. There's a long tail of single occurrences: meta (ed: ha-ha), naive, cheeky, shortsighted, dumb, hasty, racist (ed: surprising!), stuffy, demeaning, snide, dense, nasty, personal, unhelpful, contrary, contentious, fanboyish, cold, doom-and-gloom, frivolous, facile, accusatory, callous, lame, inflammatory, hating, ironic, skeptical, trolling, trollish, patronizing, spiteful, sexist, disagreeable, controversial, simple, overly reductionist, hard on Aussies (ed: chuckle), antagonistic, off-topic, crabby, crude, derogative (ed: think they meant derogatory), passing absolute judgement, an idiot, an alarmist, an insensitive dick, a curmudgeon, an HN curmudgeon, a troll, a jackass, a tweak, a word Nazi (ed: surely not), a grumpy gus, a dick, a total dick, a stickler, a hardass, a killjoy, a huge downer, a turd, a burden, the grumpy skeptic ...

...and my personal favorite:

"the next snarky Lisp guy in the room".

There were about 7 other things roughly fitting the pattern here, but not quite within the spirit of the rest: e.g., "trashing Ballmer", or "overly favorable towards Google".

Quoted text was ignored where possible; instances of "or", as in, "insensitive or rude", counted as a point for each, except for "or anything", which was ignored. Terms were very lightly massaged, for example, "so callous" would have counted simply as "callous".

zlapper• 14 years ago

Great job! May I ask how do you get to produce these kind of analysis? Thank you!

thaumaturgy2• 14 years ago

Sure, but I'm afraid it'll be disappointing: I just used pen and paper. It was a good pen, though. :-)

fjw• 14 years ago

If anyone here is enrolled in Udacity's CS101 class, this actually seems like a good extension/application for what the class is currently teaching, ie using Python's find method to search for URLs and using indices to return a string that follows "I don't mean to be".

There are probably much better ways to collect this data, but I thought this was a relevant and interesting connection.

jmilloy• 14 years ago

Of course, there is general English idiom and mimicry in play here... I typed a few into google and looked at the number of results to get a very rough sense of how hn differs from the norm. For example, "... pedantic" is (unsurprisingly) up on hn but "... critical" is down.

    rude         17.2m
    harsh         2.1m
    negative      1.8m
    snarky        0.17m
    critical      5.0m
    an ass        0.45m
    pedantic      0.15m
    argumentative 0.29m

joejohnson2• 14 years ago

What HN users are: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22I+am%22&...

DanielBMarkham• 14 years ago

"I don't mean to be" easily translates into "There's a hell of a long conversation here, with a lot of qualifiers, but frankly I don't have the time for it. Instead I'm just going to offer some generalization that you can easily throw rocks at. I know that you will, and now I'm telling you to have fun with it."

So if I say "I don't mean to be old grumpy guy" that means that what comes out of my mouth next will be a generalization and summary of my feelings that I fully know for all intents and purposes sounds like old grumpy guy. Sorry, can't be helped. That's the way the summary looks.

Most of the time people do not use such linguistic qualifiers out of some desire for self-protection or having some mechanism to inoculate them from some horrible thing that follows. It's simply a shortcut. I always thought this was pretty obvious.

I know pg posted this, and it's his site, but is there really something here worthy of this being on the front page? Is this some kind of clever editorial about the quality of the commenting? If so, I don't get it. People are trying to be nice about their criticisms?

cbs• 14 years ago

I think you're onto something here. Its hard to give an honest opinion without sounding like an asshole or whatever you put at the end of "I don't mean to be". Even moreso when you're on HN. Its quick discussion, even though we're all techies we don't have all the domain knowledge and the different cultures here doesn't always approach things from the same standpoint.

slewis• 14 years ago

If you're about to submit a comment containing "I don't mean to be", stop and consider whether what you're submitting adds any value (as defined by the HN guidelines in this case) to the conversation.

This is telling: "There's a hell of a long conversation here, with a lot of qualifiers, but frankly I don't have the time for it." If you don't have time to contribute something meaningful why contribute at all?

The other problem with "I don't mean to be" is it's fundamentally dishonest. If you don't mean to then why are you doing it? If you must do this, just say "I'm about to be".

Dylan16807• 14 years ago

Using more words to say the same thing isn't necessarily being 'meaningful'. Especially when it's just to prevent a misunderstanding of intent. Intent is not nearly as important as the point being made.

Tichy• 14 years ago

It has to be possible to voice dissent, though. If I post something for review on hn, I want honest opinions, not flattery.

pg• 14 years ago

This one produces an interesting list of offenses: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22far+be+i...

adnam2• 14 years ago

Brilliant! Reminds me of people saying "at the end of the day", such as in this medley from a UK chat-show (put to music):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlVonUdl3Ag

Confusion• 14 years ago

What do you consider offenses? I don't identify any on the first page of results, so it seems we mean different things.

adnam2• 14 years ago

Cliche.

davedx• 14 years ago

"Far be it from me to tell women how to dress, but most women do not understand the effect they have on men"

rudiger• 14 years ago

"It turns out...": http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22it+turns...

anxrn• 14 years ago

Sorting descending by time makes this a meta post: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22I+dont+m...

It also makes this comment a meta^2 post.

hc12• 14 years ago

Here's an interesting one Why you should blog posts http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=why...

I'm sure there are as many how-to's posts.

rsanchez1• 14 years ago

I'd be more interested in "X is broken" posts. A few of those seem to pop up every day.

ricardobeat• 14 years ago

Related: what HN users don't want to sound like

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=%22if+...

josiahq• 14 years ago

HN goes self-referentially meta, and the slow transition to becoming reddit begins...

abc3• 14 years ago

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22this+isn...

evanlong• 14 years ago

I don't mean to be rude but was this really necessary :P

dazbradbury• 14 years ago

Hackers are...

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/comments&q=%22hac...

mwerty• 14 years ago

"Don't get me wrong."

I have to suppress "Then why don't you say it right?"

MortenK• 14 years ago

Try also "strawman", "ad hominem" and "to be fair".

balsam• 14 years ago

looks like pg's stumbled upon a way to find smart comments

TeMPOraL• 14 years ago

What HN users hate to say, but still do: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22hate+to+...

waitwhat• 14 years ago

I am reminded of the classic "not here to make friends" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w536Alnon24

ck2• 14 years ago

So this is data mining in that the poster clearly defines what they are about to actually do.

In fact you don't even need the "be" part, though it gets more complicated, you could even just analyze "I don't mean to" - whatever follows immediately afterwards characterizes the post?

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=%22I+don%27...

silentscope• 14 years ago

clever. and I mean it.

rfrey• 14 years ago

Looking through this was interesting and fun.

I'm surprised at some of the comments that posit intent doesn't matter in communication. Intent matters a great deal: a question can be sarcastically rhetorical or earnest, a comment can be blunt-but-helpful or simply meant to hurt, a reply can be a defensive knee-jerk or a clarification of position. It's possible for the same string of words to be either of those alternatives, the choice made only by intent of the writer.

In physical communication there are many cues to indicate the intent of the speaker. Writers must provide those cues intentionally.

"I don't mean to be" is often (not always) lazy and meaningless, of course, but that doesn't imply intent doesn't matter.

What HN users don't mean to be

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