Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Not exactly the same, but my favorite visceral examples of imperfect heuristics are "garden-path sentences"[1]. These are sentences that trick you into having to backtrack when you're parsing them, which brings the whole parsing process into sharp relief.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence

A good example is:

    The old man the boat.
Figure out why this sentence is actually grammatically valid and then read the article.


To save everyone the trouble of reading a lot to learn a little: "man" is a verb in that sentence.

Though if I wanted to be clever I could hammer that into less garden-pathy sentence as follows:

"In my will, I left everything to the one who could use it best. I gave the boy the legos. I gave the girl the dollhouse. I gave the mother the kitchen set. The father the hunting rifle. The bachelor the suit. The old man the boat."




Consider applying for YC's Winter 2027 batch! Applications are open till November 2.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: