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points by OptionOfT 18 hours ago | 0 comments

> And asking for port 0 needs no privileges.

My brain has issues with this kind of form. It prevents me from reading words in a fifo manner. I now need to backtrack, because the 'no' negates the word before.

[–] wgd 8 hours ago

Recently Claude and GPT have either both acquired this tic or I've become hypersensitive to it but it's just unbearable and it turns out that an editing pass which forbids "X verbs no noun" constructions will basically always improve a piece of writing. If I could only pick one construct to ban I'd probably choose it even over the classic "not X but Y".

[–] spacechild1 17 hours ago

FWIW this is exactly how you negate a verb in German. For example: "Ich rauche nicht " -> "I don't smoke" or "Ich brauche keinen Mantel" -> "I don't need a coat"

[–] Muskwalker 17 hours ago

English |-n't| is also a negation that applies to what comes before. In fact I don't think you actually can put a verbal negation before the verb in English in ordinary/modern circumstances; only a few verbs can be directly negated, and if one of those isn't present, one is added (usually "do", this is called "do-support") ... and the negation goes after it.

"This is how you negate a verb" -> "This is not how you negate a verb" ('is' can be negated, the negation goes after)

"This confuses the duke" -> "This does not confuse the duke" ('confuses' wants do-support to negate it, and the negation goes after 'do'.)

[–] digitalsushi 18 hours ago

legit curious, if you read 'zero privileges' does it parse easier

[–] OptionOfT 18 hours ago

It parses easier, but it's still doing extra work to negate the 'needs'.

doesn't need privileges > needs zero privileges > needs no privileges

[–] kevin_thibedeau 16 hours ago

"No" here doesn't negate needs. It is part of a subordinate clause "no privileges". Substitute with "nothing" (literally, no thing) for the same parse.

[–] justsomehnguy 15 hours ago

Agree.

    "Give me a 4 apples."
    "Give me a 999 apples."
    "Give me a 0 apples."

The last one doesn't say "do not give me apples" and it surely doesn't say "do not give me a zero apples".

[–] seritools 17 hours ago

"doesn't need any privileges" is more tokens :^)