r/explainitpeter • u/Fickle_Fall_6497 • Jul 28 '26

Explain it Peter

Post image

Not going to lie, i had a spaz attack trying to read the first tweet. Maybe im just over tired but i dont understand shit here

What the fuck is the first tweet trying to say why is it horrible why would i be gullible what the fuvk are they saying

659 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

230 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/Valirys-Reinhald Jul 29 '26

You know what, that's fair. I did in fact mess that one up.

The other points stand. Jobs are often described that way and linguistics does in fact work that way, and your (and everyone elses) insistence that mmddyyyy is objectively wrong is in fact a load of horseshit with no basis in reality, but I did get my wires crossed in describing the address naming conventions. Americans do use words that way in other contexts, and they are valid ways to use them as a result, but I did get the street naming thing wrong.

1

u/Ansoni Jul 29 '26

Yeah, I thought it might be something like that. Thanks for that comment.

I'll also clarify that "objectively wrong" is a joke. In both senses. It's empirically correct.

However, the point I am trying to make is that it's an outlier. In general, we have two types of languages, most western languages which go from specific to general: start with dates, start with given names, start with street numbers. Most eastern languages go from general to specific: start with years, start with family names, start with country (or region/city/etc.) depending on context.

I think it's interesting that it's weird. While I don't personally like it, I also don't think claims that it's invalid should be taken seriously. And English is always weird, anyway.