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Song of the Rarest Large Whale on Earth Recorded for the First Time

124 points| autokill | 6 years ago |earther.gizmodo.com

37 comments

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[+] rzzzt|6 years ago|reply
Are they as rare as the 52 Hz whale?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/52-hertz_whale

[+] arthurcolle|6 years ago|reply
Well there's one of this one, and one of the other one. If we consider them to be in the same category, I guess they would be equally rare. Maybe the deaf whale can be considered more rare because it has a Wikipedia entry.
[+] hombre_fatal|6 years ago|reply
> There’s a lot the biologists don’t know about these songs. Like, uh, their purpose.

Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days?

Incredibly sad to hear how there are <30 whales in this region. Especially when listening to one's calls. Wonder what kind of whale-to-whale range these songs have.

[+] TallGuyShort|6 years ago|reply
>> Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days?

It's increasingly common in pop-journalism and click-baity content targeting social media. I'm not a big fan of it, but at least here it's conveying meaningful content - more often than not I see this style accompanying content swiped from Reddit with commentary that adds virtually nothing or even contradicts the content as though they didn't even read it fully.

[+] erikpukinskis|6 years ago|reply
Yes? It’s clear writing, it’s truthful and direct. You don’t like the style, but I’m sure there are many people who don’t like your preferred voice.

The days of one acceptable voice in trade writing are gone, and that’s a good thing. It was creating a gate keeping effect whereby people who spoke well and clearly but not “right”—according to some ethnic cultural moors—were not taken seriously.

Now everyone can be not taken seriously equally, each according to the weight of their words.

[+] NinoScript|6 years ago|reply
> Is this really considered an acceptable way to write these days?

I guess it’s fine if your target audience includes people that will feel more confortable if you write like that.

To me it depends on the subject, for some stuff I just want facts; but for stuff I know less about, I tend to prefer reading in a more casual tone.

[+] munificent|6 years ago|reply
This seems like a reasonable humorous form of emphasis to me.

The full stop before "Like" is an intensifier to draw attention to that sentence. The "uh" indicates the author's surprise at how little the biologists know, which also intensifies the sentence.

[+] pergadad|6 years ago|reply
Not just 30 in this region, its 30 of this subspecies.
[+] darkpuma|6 years ago|reply
That's really bizarre phrasing. Maybe it was a botched attempt at a porpoise pun?
[+] pvaldes|6 years ago|reply
Biologists know perfectly the purpose of these songs: Communication, duh.