[hyperpape]

When you encounter someone saying "no one should ever", you can substitute "fewer than a half dozen groups of people should tackle this problem (in systems they want to use in production). It will take each such group a tremendous number of hours, involving a multi-year process of slowly finding edge cases and missing functionality."

If that's not true, then there's room to complain, but dates and times fit the bill. In some ways they're worse than other "harder" problems, because people are more likely to think those harder problems are too hard for them. And while the vast majority of companies don't need a proprietary database, it's more likely to be a competitive advantage than your own datetime library.

I think I could eventually write a good datetime library. But I certainly should not, unless I decide that's going to be one of my major efforts to help a language that doesn't already have one.

[maxerickson]

What if people tried to speak precisely for effect instead of hyperbolically for emphasis?

[jrandm]

I believe accurately conveying identical information in a manner everyone can understand is an impossible, or at least unreasonable, burden to place on individuals.

Instead, what if people tried to hear graciously and "assume good faith"?

The quote is ripped from HN's guidelines.

[maxerickson]

Can you please explain more about how your response relates to my comment?

For instance, I've not placed the burden of "conveying identical information in a manner everyone can understand" on anyone, nor have I assumed bad faith. So it seems like a weird comment to tack onto mine, but I am assuming I just don't correctly understand.

[IggleSniggle]

Hyperbole and precision can get tricky in human language because different cultural groups have different language encodings for the same sets of words.

For example, if you live in London then "9 in the morning" means when the world synchronized clocks agree that, locally for you, the time is 9am. But if you say "9 in the morning" to someone in Belize, it means "first thing after you are finished with your morning and ready to start your day," which can mean 1pm in some cases.

Here's a lovely article on these kind of time-keeping differences, around something that you might expect to have a precise meaning:

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-different-cultures-under...

More to the point at hand, however, you suggested that people not speak in hyperbole but instead speak accurately. Although you can request that others adjust their use of language while in your presence to better meet your needs for a certain kind of precision, policing other people's language isn't possible. However, re-interpreting what people say into what they mean is somewhat possible for an astute listener who understands the context.

[maxerickson]

You are making my simple statement really complicated.

I'm not walking around demanding people change their communication to accommodate me, I'm suggesting that trying to speak precisely can be a useful exercise.

[IggleSniggle]

I assumed you were being precise when you asked "why can't people speak more precisely" and also when you asked "can you explain how your comment relates to mine?"

I am not the person you originally responded to, fwiw, and I agree that trying to speak precisely is a useful exercise, even if I believe it is impossible except in highly formalized languages.

[jrandm]

The sibling replies by IggleSniggle I fully endorse as supporting my meaning in the original post.

As to explaining more about my thought process: You asked a hypothetical "what if" question which, given the question itself is imprecise, I interpreted as you wishing information was always conveyed to your desired precision/accuracy, and extrapolated that (given this is a public forum) into general communication.

I shared my thoughts, specifically that it seems impossible for a person to always communicate perfectly to an unknown audience, and offered a different hypothetical. The last line explains the punctuation use in my "what if."

[wwweston]

Precision of understanding would go up and emotional investment in a topic would likely be more proportional to true stakes?

Sounds boring but functional.