One of the linguistics types on substack mentioned that Kalshi is having a kerfuffle about English grammar. I looked it up. It’s not really about English, it’s about Welsh[ing].
Gambling and stock trading are absolutely alien to my mind. I can’t BEGIN to see why you’d want to exchange money because something changed or didn’t change or might change in the future. Even worse, why would you exchange money on the odds that somebody else might exchange money on the odds that somebody else-else might exchange money because a number didn’t move?
Natural Law: Commerce is about value, not endless layers of abstraction. I take a can of soup from your shelf, and I pay you for the can of soup. You drive me two miles, and I pay you for driving me. No technicalities involved, no abstractions.
The article about Kalshi gives examples of these ridiculous disputes.
Should homophones count? What about words spoken as part of proper nouns or URLs? How about mispronunciations, acronyms, abbreviations, compound words and foreign-language terms? Did Cardi B “perform” at the Super Bowl? Did Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wear a “suit”?
Now I see. It’s a classic cheap trick, formerly common in features like Ripley’s.
Q: Did you know that peacocks don’t lay eggs?
A: Peahens do! Ha ha ha! Gotcha!
Q: Did you know that the US has only 46 states?
A: The others are commonwealths! Ha ha ha! Gotcha!
Q: There’s no buffalo on the buffalo nickel.
A: It’s a bison! Ha ha ha! Gotcha!
These tricks weren’t funny when Ripley pulled them, and they certainly don’t deserve to be part of commerce.
Polistra's Mill 