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How To Write Like Mark Zuckerberg
newguy77 found a story talking about the results of a linguistics expert being brought in on the Facebook ownership case. They claim the emails are faked since Zuckerberg uses apostrophes correctly and opens sentences more casually than the damning emails.
So all those years of being a grammar nazi can result in actual gainful employment? Who knew?
Also:
They claim the emails are faked since he uses Apostrophes correctly
But did he use Capitalization correctly?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
You forgot the government.
which is totally what she said
Zuckerburg's writing style of 2003 needs to be compared with emails of that era, not today. Furthermore, he could have been off on some random day in 2003 because he had a cold and wasn't thinking. This just isn't that reliable of method of determining authorship.
It is a reliable method of creating doubt though. Once he has doubt on his side, the case becomes a lot more difficult for his opponent.
They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
It's easy to learn to use apostrophes correctly, and find out that charm works better than being stiff.
I will admit, in general, it shouldn't change with all those points in just a few years, but it's hardly 'proof'... Just a likelihood. Certainly not enough to throw the case all on its own.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
According to the actual court document: " KNOWN writings used for comparison were various email writings of Mr. Zuckerbergexchanged with the Plaintiff and related parties during the time period as specified in the Amended Complaint, which totaled 35 emails
Can I still blame Facebook and other social media sites for the gradual acceptance of butchered English? Since Zuckerberg doesn't seem like he goes around shortening 'cause' to 'cuz', leaving 'I' as 'i' and neglecting punctuation wherever possible; can I still put part of the blame on him when it becomes proper 'english' to open a formal letter with 'sup', and close it with 'holla back'?
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
are* damnit. Always get myself with the re-writing of parts of sentences.
On a side note, I found it interesting that the Zuck capitalises "Internet". I suppose it's valid, though I've never thought to do so myself.
which is totally what she said
Zuckerburg's writing style of 2003 needs to be compared with emails of that era, not today.
If you had read the article, you would have had the opportunity to read the report yourself, within which was the following:
Certainly sounds like the comparison material was taken from the same time period as the presented document is suggested to have originated...
The article didn't mention what samples were compared only that 35 of them were used. Maybe they used some from that time. Also according to Zuckerberg's side, Havard has no records of the "suspect" emails that are in question. That isn't definitive either but if Havard has all his other emails, it would make it less plausible that they are real.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That's actually the proper way to write Internet, according to most style books. Grammatically, I'm not sure it matters.
Now that Zuck has a good 12 billion to his name, he is really desperately trying to bury this skeleton in his closet by throwing money at it. Come on, we've all been 17 and unemployed at one time, and would sign just about any piece of paper that would promise us better work than bagging groceries. Sure Ceglia is a grade A scumbag, but so is Zuck, and he deserves to have a stupid mistake like this come back and bite him in the ass now that his ass is actually worth something.
Try reading the article, the comparison documents were taken from the same period as the questionable document.
Slashdot commenters aren't even trying these days...
Maybe they used some from that time.
It's well beyond a "maybe".
KNOWN writings used for comparison were various email writings of Mr. Zuckerberg exchanged with the Plaintiff and related parties during the time period as specified in the Amended Complaint, which totaled 35 emails.
Jeez...
He did specify that he was talking about groups that made money off their invasion of privacy. Lot's of people may make money off of the government's efforts at privacy-erosion, but they aren't the government itself.
And I'm needing chest-waders for all this BS and bad "science".
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The basic difference between the two is how they manage harvested data.
So, you come to Google, "I have this gizmo for sale, help me sell it." and Google goes "Fine, we found 2000 customers who purchased your gizmo, ship the gizmos here and here (or let us handle it), and here's your money, after we took our cut."
So, you come to Facebook, "I have this gizmo for sale, help me sell it." and Facebook goes "Fine, pay us our cut and here's your 20000000 records of our users data, emails, phones, home addresses, we guess at least 2000 of them are bound to be willing to buy your gizmo if you market it to them."
It's definite oversimplification but it seems your data is much safer with Google than with Facebook.
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Off-topic and pointless maybe, but I use them a lot in my own writing. I remember a handful of esoteric grammatical tips from way back in high school that I've found really help out with bringing the context of conversation to the written word. I'm no grammar god, but it's disappointing to see how much knowledge of the intricacies of our written language is being lost in the era of LOLs and ZOMGs. I'm a casual reader of the classics, and it's amazing how pervasive beautiful writing was even at the lowest tiers of education; e.g. Civil War-era letters from soldiers to their loved ones (lol).
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Right. On the other hand, is he going to write like a doofus to the owner of half his company? I'm not saying it doesn't have merit, it just isn't that reliable compared to other methods of determining authorship.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I'm certain jurors will put aside their prejudices and think like a statician. I am rather curious (I am assuming this is a jury trial) who they managed to get for untampered jurors given how much "Facebook" is a household name, like Jello, Google, and Toyota.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
That is a more reliable method.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
The two don't have to be directly linked. They do both, and they're doing their damndest to make invading your privacy even more legal. I'm sure they do plenty of invading illegally too, when they can get away with it. The government also get money from those they help out, and the privacy erosion helps to ensure that any who want to dispose of the current crooked system get wiped out.
which is totally what she said
So, you call requiring every adult in the country to report all of their financial information every year to the government so that said government can tell each person how much money said government is going to forcibly take from each person NOT an invasion of privacy? (I hope that sentence didn't sound too much like Mark Zuckerberg.)
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
do they compare the emails in question to Ceglia's writing style?
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
Yes, it's a proper name of the network - like Fidonet, or Freenet. (as opposed to generic names like darknet or intranet. Ethernet, on the other hand, is a brand name.)
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No, I call that part of the social compact that defines society :p
I don't. I call it a reasonable approach toward getting everyone who uses the common infrastructure to actually pay something approaching their fair share of society's costs. Maybe it's not the best approach, but it sure beats any proposals I've seen from the libertarians. Wait, have there even BEEN any? I'm not including the puerile rantings of Ayn Rand and her disciples.
What you wrote was a simplification - if it had been an oversimplification, that little prefix, 'over', would mean you had gone too far in simplifying and there was no truth left in your statement. There's still plenty of truth in your two examples - the real contracts Google and Facebook use have proportionate and analogous differences in both just what they offer to do for a customer and how they treat the third party data they hold. You are making a good point - don't bury your own light under a bushel basket.
Who is John Cabal?
1. steal idea
2. hack up code
3. lawyer up
4. profit!
our work is done
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Good thing that the linguist was comparing against emails from the same period of time, no?
First, many people (including my mother) have little to no idea what Facebook is.
Second, it isn't a criteria of jury selection that they never heard of the company.
Did you write that comment...wait for it...of your own free will?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Sounds more like a band name.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
Pre-Investment Zuckerberg: j00 sux0r! 4ll ur B4ss R b3long 2 Z!
"On October 24, 2007, Microsoft announced that it had purchased a 1.6% share of Facebook for $240 million, giving Facebook a total implied value of around $15 billion." - Wikipedia
Post-Investment Zuckerberg: I, Mr. Zuckerberg, am sorry to inform you that you are inadequate for consideration. Hence force, I will purchase all of your base. To wit I declare, "For great justice."
I8-D
is the apostrophe
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
The writing style of people never changes between 20 and 35. Its totally constant and als always the same regardless with whom they communicate.
A fact which should haunt you.
First, many people (including my mother) have little to no idea what Facebook is.
Possibly though these people--at least by my observation--are becoming quite rare, and generally geriatric and very rural.
Second, it isn't a criteria of jury selection that they never heard of the company.
True, but from my experience people usually have a polarized opinion about the site.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
You haven't been paying attention. The (US) government hasn't been "making" money since Bill Clinton was in office.
American Standard Sociopath.
Were they comparing emails addressed to the same persons too?
Yes.
KNOWN writings used for comparison were various email writings of Mr. Zuckerberg exchanged with the Plaintiff and related parties during the time period as specified in the Amended Complaint, which totaled 35 emails.
And while we're at it, there are ways a person's writing style might change and ways it simply never will.
I just deliberately shifted to a more casual mode, by using the opening phrase "And while we're at it", as though I was standing physically next to 'Richard_at_work' and just adding my two cents without much reflection, immediately after he had finished. As part of giving my post that slightly more casual flavor, I used the contraction "we're". I might have been more formal than to presume acquaintance with 'Richard_at_work' just because I find myself in agreement with him on this point, but I'd feel pretty silly going to casual mode and then turning around and insisting on "we are".
OTOH, I know the difference between the contraction 'it's' and the possessive 'its'. If for some reason I'm more concerned over getting an answer off quickly than writing well, I would still try to avoid mangling those two. I might write more run on sentences. I might fail to spot a case where I had a singular/plural mismatch. But, If all those things are happening many times as often as I usually make such mistakes, it's not a stylistic change, it's a cerebral haemorrhage. There are things that have become real pet peeves of mine - such as people using the word 'between' when there are less than three things implied in their statements. (an object has to be between at least two other objects - if there is only one other object, the first object is beside it, not between it). I'm never going to write 'for all intensive purposes', or call a porpoise a fish, or think a light year is a unit of time, and if I use etcetera more than once in a row, I'm channelling the King of Siam. My writing style simply won't change in such ways.
I'll save time abbreviating On The Other Hand to a ETLA if I think the typical person I'm posting to will understand it. I'll push the envelope and use ETLA in a place such as Slashdot where some readers will recognise the joke. I'll ignore the English standard spell checker that wants me to go back up and ad a 'u' to 'flavor' in my second paragraph, and If I'd spelled 'recognise' with a z in common American fashion, I would have left it. However, when I caught myself writing "like Slashdot", I couldn't relax until I corrected that mistake.
It's very unlikely anyone learns to write properly, in even the most modest degree, and doesn't pick up some pet peeves. They get worse, not better, with time.
Who is John Cabal?
Give a computer + Internet for 60 year old person and teach how to use email + chat and in few months grammar have changed a lot.
Give same for a 10-15 year old and you just get l33t or SMStalk
Who woulda thunk a Harvard student would have no problems keeping track of where apostrophes go. I can't imagine proper use of the English language was something that he only recently developed...
I went to eat some animal crackers and the box said, "Do not eat if seal is broken." I opened the box and sure enough..
First, many people (including my mother) have little to no idea what Facebook is.
Possibly though these people--at least by my observation--are becoming quite rare, and generally geriatric and very rural.
Sure, Facebook is very popular, but I don't think one has to be computer illiterate in order to know "little or nothing" about it. Well, lets see what I know about Facebook:
I would call this "little or nothing". Nor do I think this weird. I know about Facebook about as much as I know about the NFL, Dancing with the Stars, or the Ford Motor Company.
Yeah, if it's a proper noun (as in referring to *the* Internet, then it should be capitalised). Back in the day the word internet may have been used as a common noun to describe *an* internet. That practice has probably declined.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
That really doesn't have to do with the "bias" issue I was trying to raise. The goal of jury selection is to obtain a panel without preconceived bias. Lay persons such as you elude to with your example can very well, and as far as I can tell generally do have a strong opinion about the service. Typically favorable. An attack on Facebook is an attack on their way of life. Or, for those in the know, the opinion seems to strongly swing negative. For them an attack on Facebook would be a way to stick it to Zuckerburg for selling out people's privacy.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Similar in technique to this: http://iwl.me/ - give it a few paragraphs of your own writing and you'll get a comparison to some famous person or other.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Flavor only contracts for U ads in the US, In the UK the U is added automatically.
When did anyone sign said compact? In the case of immigrants, it's easy, because they make pledges and the like to enter. What about those of us born here? Is our signature made when we don't leave? Birth? I'm curious as to what others think.
SSC
He has a better version of office than he had back then.
When you are born, you enter society and the manner in which it was run. Nature is what provided two individuals the decision as to whether or not to do so. If as a potential parent, one would not wish to bring their child into their society, they should find a new one. Once that child enters adulthood, he or she is free to also make that choice.
This goes for every society, formalized or not.
"Making" money, as the government does it, is not done through taxes. Taxes are a source of revenue.
Seriously?
Firstly, you're born into your society. Tough shit. As soon as you bawl as you're exiting your mother's vagina, you're within the society.
Secondly, your society allowed you to be born. Without their policies, and their culture, you would not be here.
Thirdly, you've got it good compared to most people on this planet, because of your society. If you didn't, you wouldn't be posting here.
All that being said, there's no reason not to try to change your society for the better. However, curling up into a ball and complaining about those who are kicking you down should generally be reserved for those who this occurs to literally.
I work in advertising and from what I've seen it doesn't work either of those ways.
If an advertiser approaches Google or Facebook what is sold is not user profiles, but clicks on the advertiser's ad(If you're branding you might buy impressions, but we're talking about selling a widget). All the data Google and Facebook collect is not what they give out to advertisers, but they use it to determine what ads to show to you.
"reasonable doubt" is used in crimal court the term used to win in civil court is "preponderance of evidence"
True, but from my experience people usually have a polarized opinion about the site.
I feel strongly that the site is a big waste of time, but I have absolutely no opinion on the ownership of the site.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
By giving people the power, to share we're making the world, more transparent
Obviously not Mark Zuckerberg.
I'm guessing William Shatner.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Still, I'd want to see evidence establishing that this technique is reliable before giving much credence to such expert testimony. For all we know people who are committing fraud commit more punctuation mistakes, or write more formally. If you can't show that this methodology has support in the peer reviewed literature, it's just amateur forensic speculation.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The language Zuckerberg uses is actually dumber than what the dumb guy wrote to try and sound smart. RTFA :P
which is totally what she said
The blame probably goes much further back to something like IRC.
Back farther: To pre-internet "chat" and conferencing programs on timesharing computers. And further to Morse code radio telegraphy. (Wired telegraph didn't promote shortening words because it was billed by the word - but didn't send punctuation marks, either.)
My take:
On one hand some stuff (like limited size text messaging on twitter and SMS with latter's typically rotten keypad interface) promotes extreme abbreviation, rebus-style phonetic respellings, and the like.
On the other, some of this technology actually promotes literacy. Netnews and mailing lists, along with their successors (personal web sites, blogs, and news-followup commenting, especially on controversial subjects) are prime examples. Reading comprehension helps in the formulation of an argument while good grammarand spelling helps convince the readership (much like a clear voice and high-class accent). Participants tend to realize this (or have their noses rubbed in it by their opponents) and with practice improve greatly. And integrated spelling (and even grammar) checkers in editing and posting tools helps further.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Still, AFAIR, Google takes your ad content and you don't see much about people who see it, until someone clicks through. And if you manage your sales through Google Checkout and other their helpful services, you may not even see that much, just very general statistics. OTOH, Facebook opens up a whole lot of their user data through the API.
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You forgot the government.
You must not know about this then?
You like this http://tinyurl.com/4yn3fuq
Unfortunately, "making money" is a double entendre in the case of government.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Linguistical analysis has a long history in courts the world over - and like any other expert witness, it boils down to who has the more credible witness.
But the technique has been well established as reliable enough to produce acceptable testimony in court.
Hence the scare-quotes.