I noticed one post with a ridiculous take on education, and now the algorithm only shows me posts from out-of-touch “public education advocates” like this one:
Standardized tests are politicized by the use of the word “not.” Now I’ve truly heard every excuse.
Vision issues matter and indeed are common.
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Opposition to standardized tests reeks of “very special cookie” preoccupations.
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So, is ‘not’ … racist?
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my son is pretty smart but sometimes makes dumb mistakes by missing key words like “not” or “best” etc. it’s annoying.
Amanda
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“dumb mistakes by missing key words like “not”
I learned long ago through bitter experience to never use negative forms in instructional contexts. Many people, otherwise normal and intelligent, seem incapable of processing negatives.
Write “Do NOT under any circumstances do X” will be understood as instructions or advice to do X. So I always frame instructions positively “please do Y”
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I believe the proponents of New Thought (you know, the “Every day, in every way, I am growing better and better” people) also follow this rule– important to render your affirmations in the positive, because your subconscious or whatever will ignore negative particles like not, never, don’t, etc.
By these rules, Google’s “don’t be evil” shakes out in practice as “be evil.”
So perhaps there’s some truth to it!
ethyl
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Some of the most staggering reading-aloud blunders in church happen when somebody leaves out the word “not”.
The other one that makes everybody blink awkwardly a few times is when somebody conflates “circumscribe” with “circumcise.”
ethyl
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
Clarissa's Blog 
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