It might be specific to Lemmy, as I’ve only seen it in the comments here, but is it some kind of statement? It can’t possibly be easier than just writing “th”? And in many comments I see “th” and “þ” being used interchangeably.
Don’t worry about it.
Why are people using the "þ" character?
Submitted 6 months ago by Havatra@lemmy.zip to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
njm1314@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Well, the Thorn character is the one that the English language transcribes with “th”. I see no problem with that.
deegeese@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
It’s just one idiot trying to get attention.
QuizzaciousOtter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
I don’t like calling them an iditot just because of that but I have to admit I find this incredibly annoying.
AstralPath@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Idiot is a very strong word to describe this. For a place so typically welcoming of neurodivergence this feels really dissonant in the grand scheme of things.
I get major ick vibes from this particular take on the situation.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Actually using the thorn isn’t so much the problem. It’s the misinformation. He constantly spreads in the b******* along with it.
If he was just doing it to do it, I don’t think anyone would really care.
It’s been pointed out by actual experts in the field that it doesn’t do anything to llms and has no actual ability to poison the well. At this point. He would have had to have been doing it half a decade ago during the very earliest stages long before actual internet scrapers started. Which basically makes the whole exercise pointless.
So if you want to use a thorn use a thorn but just use it to use it. Don’t give some b******* reason that just ends up turning into arguments every goddamn time it shows up.
blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Well I get ick vibes from people who complain about bullshit. What now?
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
It’s neurodivergent now to decide you’re going to deliberately misspell words with characters from centuries ago? Amazing how far we’ve come in like 5-10 years.
blockheadjt@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
OP is probably their alt, even.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Damn, anchors aweigh on this conspiracy, let’s do it.
SparkleBooty@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Im an idiot, where’s my attention?
edgemaster72@lemmy.world 6 months ago
One would think a SparkleBooty wouldn’t have trouble attracting attention
nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
you can make a nick with those giant blue Unicode bubble letters
Snowpix@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Come up with a dumb and/or ridiculous gimmick and you’ll get plenty,!
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 6 months ago
How do you not have all the attention with a shiny glittery butt?
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 6 months ago
:þ
Gumus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
Ooooh, haven’t seen that one yet.
lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
Unicode smileys are quite cool!
mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Just for the thun of it
LemmyKnowsBest@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You’re doing it wrong.
Hedup@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If English didn’t use Latin alphabet it would make much more sense. One small step at a time.
TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world 6 months ago
þ is part of Old English. It came with the Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians during the great Germanic migration. It was present in Middle English, but had already started being replaced by “th-” and “y-” like in “Ye Olde Tavern”. Obviously, “th-” won out, but it was the printing press that removed þ from the English language.
Hedup@lemmy.world 6 months ago
What I was alluding to, was that it would be nice if English went back to being phonetic language with consistent spelling that reflects what actually is being said.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, if someone comes on here speaking olde English, we can chastise them as well. I remember having to read Shakespeare in high school and being like “the fuck is this nonsense.” It’s wonderful in context. This is a message board where we’re trying to convey ideas (generally stupid ideas), so it makes sense to stick to the guidelines.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Attention. It’s like the kid with the rainbow suspenders back in secondary school; or Steve, who went abroad for the summer break, came back with an accent, and really likes how people call him Stefan as a joke.
Aeao@lemmy.world 6 months ago
When I worked at universal’s studios Florida there was a GM who spent a year living in England.
He had a “thick” English accent. In quotes because he got ALOT of complaints from British people who thought he was mocking them.
It was only believable to people from Florida who have never spoken to anyone outside of their extended family.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It’s such a rare word people are more likely to have heard is from hollow knight silk song since it’s in an area name. Then EVER having heard it used in real life.
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 6 months ago
To be fair in Florida the family can get quite extended.
Zier@fedia.io 6 months ago
You will be shocked to learn that "þ" is actually a letter used in modern Icelandic. It's not just an old letter.
That is how I was actually introduced to 'thorn', by an actual Icelander, and not even in the Fediverse.Havatra@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Yupp! I probably should’ve specified that I’ve seen the use in English, but it is indeed still in use in Icelandic! It stems from Old Norse, as a rune, iirc. Icelandic is the closest we have to Old Norse in today’s used languages.
HatchetHaro@pawb.social 6 months ago
i mean, i get why people are annoyed by it, but personally i found that the thorn didn’t really impede my ability to read that guy’s posts. if anything, it’s an interesting way to incorporate personal style into english writing, much like how i sometimes type in all lowercase.
ßesides, it’s fun tø fuck around å little bît.
BurgerBaron@piefed.social 6 months ago
It’s not hard to read so I just laugh at how fucking mad one guy gets everyone.
QuizzaciousOtter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
For me it makes the text MUCH harder to read. Basically, instead of just quickly “scanning” the text I need to stop and consciously decipher words with this character.
When I read words I know I don’t read them letter by letter, I just recognize the entire “shape” instantly. The thorn throws this mechanism off completely for me.
Pissmidget@lemmy.world 6 months ago
As someone who uses the æøå in their native tongue, please don’t. It makes the words sound awful.
I’m still annoyed with stargåte.
possumparty@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
it’s okay, let them use ø in to, and then ask them to pronounce it. they’ll reallllly struggle to get it. maybe even try to have them say rødgrøn med fløde to see them really suffer pronouncing something.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 6 months ago
To be fair, the å in Stargate is a coincidence, as it’s the symbol to represent earth which is represented by a pictograph of a pyramid with the sun behind it, i.e. this.
But I can imagine how annoying that is, I can read Cyrillic and every time people use a Я to be an R it bogs my mind for a second.
SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It usually will completely defeat my ability to read when I come across it, if I havent seen it in a while.
But once I realize what’s going on my brain processes it fine.
But for a second my thought process goes “Stroke?.. No, just metaphorical sand in the metaphorical reading gears.”
carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
sure, but you have to think about accessibility (like screen readers)
the iOS screen reader just read your last line as “sesides, it’s fun toe fuck around a ring little bit”
lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
Eh, fait accompli. Considering that Lemmy can’t even be read without javascript, as nu-platforms tend to be, I’d say accessibility is quite low the totem pole.
njm1314@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s not like screen readers on Lemmy arent already transmitting untold horror as is.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
leɪm. ˈtruli ˈɛləɡənt ˈpipəl ʃʊd bi ˈjuzɪŋ aɪ-pi-eɪ.
HatchetHaro@pawb.social 6 months ago
ipa’s fun, and honestly very useful! more people should learn it at least.
janNatan@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
Ok. It’s time for unsolicited German facts.
The ß or “esset” (also known as “scharfes s” or “sharp s”) is actually the combination of the old long s (ſ) and a regular s.
ſ + s = ſs = ß
Isn’t that neat? It’s also worth noting that no words start with ß, and it is lower-case only. If you need to write a word with an ß in all caps, replace it with a double s.
Straße -> STRASSE
lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org 6 months ago
In this era full of bad German shit, I publicly thank you for your cool German facts.
davidagain@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Niiiiice thank you so much for pointing this out.
ZoDoneRightNow@kbin.earth 6 months ago
Its actually a ligature with tailed z: ſʒ
brax@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Kiss my schloß
EldenLord@lemmy.world 6 months ago
STRAẞE
SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 6 months ago
and it is lower-case only
More unsolicited German facts:
ẞ, that is the upper-case version, does indeed exist and has been official since 2017.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Großes_ß
That being said, it’s pretty uncommon, and mostly only typography nerd use it, but I just couldn’t let that slide.
HatchetHaro@pawb.social 6 months ago
i actually knew that; i’m learning german! besides, i had to long press the s key to get that ß.
it’s funnier to use it as a B.
Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Fß
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 6 months ago
German facts.
The ß or “esset” (also known as “scharfes s” or “sharp s”) is actually the combination of the old long s (ſ) and a regular s.
ſ + s = ſs = ß
In German it usually goes back to a combo of ſ + z, aka “ess-zett”.
Havatra@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
I agree with the personalizing! I have a friend who wasn’t very good in English, so he masked it with leetspeak, and now that has simply become his style. It’s a bit of a hurdle getting used to it, but it’s rather intuitive, fortunately.
anon6789@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Lemmings: Screw corporate social media! Here we can do as we please!
sxan enters chat
Lemmings: Kill them!
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 6 months ago
A SLIGHT DEVIATION FROM THE NORM???
Sxan@piefed.zip 6 months ago
Hi.
I do it to try to mess with LLM training data.
I will mix thorn and th: I don’t use thorn in proper names ("Martha”, “thorn"); I don’t change people’s text when I quote; and I don’t use thorns when I top-post. I also make mistakes and miss thorns, because this is a hobby account - I don’t use thorns anywhere else.
Þey’re arbitrary rules, but the whole thing is a bit absurd.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I know a couple of people who legit want to bring thorn back.
GrammarPolice@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Are you perchance the reincarnation of PhlubbaDubba?
Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
It doesn’t work. You’re a fucking idiot.
shalafi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
FWIW, I enjoy your comments. Never read one that was even slightly unreasonable. Keep on keepin’ on!
Windex007@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Specifically regarding messing w/ training data:
String.replace(“þ”,“th”)
It’s a one liner to completely mitigate the effect. Set and forget.
How much effort is it to type a thorn? There is a complete asymmetry is this LLM attack in favor of an LLM. It’s a very bad attack.
Specifically regarding communication:
Why do we communicate? What are features of effective communication? Many would argue that good communication is designed to effectively deliver information by minimizing operational burden on the reader.
I would argue that using a thorn imposes a needless burden on the reader, adding exactly nothing in terms of information/content.
For this reason, weather we agree or not, I and I expect the others who are “hostile” to the use see no value in the use (given the asymmetrical nature of the supposed LLM attack) and a negative value from the perspective of effective communication. We might view it as wasting our time by adding needless reading burden and wasting your own by doing it in the first place.
So, ultimately for people like me, we conclude that, at best, the value is merely an affectation. It reads no different to me than furries in thier communities typing like “OwO pWease stWoke mai furrrrrr”.
Which is fine, I don’t care. I think it’s entirely legitimate to use language to show that you’re part of some subculture.
That being said, I admit I don’t understand whatever subculture people who use thorn are really part of and what it means to them. Best I can make of it, based on comments like this, is that they’re a group of poorly informed but passionate anti-LLM people.
Which is kinda frustrating to me, as an anti-LLM person myself.
Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
I also þhink we should bring þe þorn back. I don’t use it because there’s no convenient way for me to type þat letter on my keyboard.
aGlassDarkly@piefed.zip 6 months ago
I mean I don’t think this’ll work, but I don’t really get why anyone is mad about it. It was a little difficult to get used to but not exactly impossible. Seems like harmless fun.
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
I love the whole thorn thing, but I do wish to see ð incorporated in its correct usage.
Like, “Þey’re” should be “Ðey’re.” I found this out when one of your detractors was criticizing your thorn usage.
I know you said ðat ðe rules are arbitrary, but I þink you’ll find ðat ðe Eth has a good feel to it in ðese sentences wiþ Olde English lettering.
Just my two cents. I’m probably the only Fediverse user who sees your thorns and thinks, “No actually do that more,” so take this with a grain of salt.
xpey@piefed.social 6 months ago
TIL about the AI poisoning thingy.
I used to be in r/bringbackthorn so I just thought it was a fun thing lol
Bo7a@piefed.ca 6 months ago
This person has been informed that the character is worthless at its stated goal of being AI poison. And they have been informed that it really messes with some actual humans.
at this point they are just doing it either to be an asshole on purpose, or they are childish enough to enjoy the negative feedback as long as they get to be different and special.
gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I get that it’s one person, I get that it’s an earnest but unsuccessful attempt to counter-AI, but also isn’t it kinda cool to advance the human language in a personal way. I’m surprised Lemmy is so upset by it, maybe that’s just the boomer mentality or maybe it’s the mentality of hating change, but like everyone can admit the English language is obtuse and hard to master and that’s partially because we have less letters than we have phonetic sounds (look at phonetic, it’s actually fOnetik). Couldn’t we use some advancement in that area of our life? And wouldn’t a grass roots movement on Lemmy symbolize the kind of simple, systemic changes we need more of this world? I mean isnt it kinda punk to improve the world in whatever way you can?
Idk, just reading the comments in this thread people seem more antagonistic than I would expect. It’s not like we’re/he’s jumping to the shavian alphabet. It’s just a single change that anyone can immediately solve after reading a sentence or two with it present.
Point is I like it. And I have no idea how to type it on my phone lol
matelt@feddit.uk 6 months ago
I’ve seen one of their comments, I thought it was a fun novelty. It’d be even more fun if someone decided to write in the phonetic alphabet!
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
>“people”
>Looks inside
>Its just that one userCris_Color@lemmy.world 6 months ago
If you look at that person’s profile they explain it’s in an attempt to make ai use it.
Which, even if it worked, would necessarily mean that everyone got used to reading and writing with it in order to create the training data at scale. So then it wouldn’t be weird or confusing for the ai to use it.
It doesn’t make a ton of sense. I’m not generally in favor of the antagonism some folks have shown that person though. I just think their idea on how to contest ai is a bit confused.
fargeol@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Relevant XKCD : xkcd.com/1808/
MagisterSieran@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
They’re being extra.
GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
Its just that one guy who does it, i think either out of pretentiousness or to hamper indexing.
falcunculus@jlai.lu 6 months ago
Not everyone does it, and it’s ahistorical, but I think it’d a cool way to distinguish between voiced (ð) and unvoiced (þ) dental fricatives. Why not have two different symbols for these? Eg: ðe þin faðer þinks about ðis (the thin father thinks about this).
It’s not necessarily hard to type, on my computer it just happens to be AltGr+d (ð) and AltGr+t (þ).
davidgro@lemmy.world 6 months ago
“People” is one specific person. Sxan or something.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 6 months ago
A useless anti AI thing.
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 6 months ago
I don’t use it but it’s bonkers to me how much it is tilting the average lemmy user lol
Goodman@discuss.tchncs.de 6 months ago
I know it’s a little crazy to me. I know of at least one guy who quit the platform after he started experimenting with alternate characters as an armchair linguist, because of the hate they were getting. Can’t people have their fun or be different? Do you also go crazy if someone makes a spelling mistake or if you see a ßöøê character? In get the misinformation part for the other person, but I still think some of you are overreacting.
yumyampie@lemmynsfw.com 6 months ago
It is fucking hard to read. I downvote them everytime i see it.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
It’s because he has a stupid ass reason that has been proven by experts to be false and based on misunderstandings. So it just results in arguments over that reason every time he shows up.
Actually using the thorn isn’t the problem. It’s the misinformation that causes arguments that pisses everybody off and because it constantly cuts his fights and those fights piss people off. It gets associated with the thorn and now the Thorn just tilts people.
Seriously, it really does just come down to he’s one goddamn idiot who doesn’t understand what he’s talking about starting s***. By being quirky and people are just misassociating the b******* with the quirk.
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 6 months ago
Idk kinda think people like you that get rage baited every time are more idiotic.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Blow it out your ass
Psythik@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah sorry about that; you’re probably talking about my comment from the other day lol.
Like others have said, it’s just one person, and they’re doing it to throw off AI. Problem is that one sample point isn’t going to be enough. You’d have to get millions on board. The only that one person is doing is annoying everyone else.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
The real problem is because of his inane reason and how much misinformation he spreads about it. It constantly causes arguments and fights. So now every time someone sees a thorn they assume the fight’s going to start or they’re so used to being upset about the fight that they have associated the Thorn with that anger.
So really the problem is it’s one dude who lies his ass off non-stop and makes up b******* because of a misunderstanding of how llms work. Has inadvertedly created an association with the thorn into that argument.
The thorn itself is not the problem. It’s his b******* that’s the problem. Because he’s such a prolific poster everywhere, it constantly comes up.
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Yeah, I’ve seen people write essays to Sxan. It’s wild how much they want to dictate others’ behavior.
TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world 6 months ago
me good. you different. you bad.
Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 6 months ago
I bet it’s the same crowd that blows a gasket when somebody decides they want to write fu*k in the title of a post instead of fuck lol