

Ask HN: Should it be illegal to discriminate against poor writers/speakers? - amichail

Should it be illegal to discriminate against people who are poor writers/speakers but who are good enough to be clearly understood?<p>Why should society penalize people who have not mastered a messy natural language?
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rmah
I submit that not only should it be legal, but that it is good to do so!

More seriously... You write "but who are good enough to be clearly
understood". Have you considered that perhaps they are only clearly understood
in their own minds? By definition poor communicators (speakers/writers) have
trouble getting their point across. If they get their point across well, they
are not poor communicators.

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JoeCortopassi
If I'm reading this correctly, you aren't actually asking if it should be
illegal to discriminate against people with poor communication skills, but
rather people with foreign accents that make people difficult to understand.

Either way it's a tricky subject, because people are super sensitive to these
kind of things. But if a teammate on a project can't be understood, than they
won't be effective, tasks will get confused and messed up, and the project
will eventually suffer because of it. In this avenue, it's perfectly
understandable to list communication skills alongside education and work
experience

But if you mean just rejecting people because they have a unique accent, but
can be understood, than I would agree that is wrong.

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amichail
I'm referring more to the use of unsophisticated language and occasional
grammar errors.

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jambo
howud u complish tht?

[That was a serious question with an illuminating response. How would you know
whether those who downvoted me were doing so because of my comprehensible but
poor writing style, or out of disagreement?]

~~~
JoeCortopassi
I'll upvote, just cause I think you were trying to make a point

