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Adorable and Harmless
Personal blog · kittenbeloved.substack.comwritingculture
Adorable and Harmless is a personal blog at kittenbeloved.substack.com about writing and culture. Since 2025, 8 different Hacker News readers have linked it 8 times, most often “College English majors can't read”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link posts arguing that reading comprehension and literary skills are declining, citing college English majors and mass literacy as support for their own claims.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Serious ideas, playfully considered.
Most-linked posts?
- College English majors can't read6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2025-05-21
What Hacker News says?
Given that only about 10-40% of advanced readers (depending on subpopulation criteria and task [0]) can parse analogy and metaphor, parent is the majority rather than the minority. Modern day statistics on what used to be basic reading comprehension are bleak. [0] https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/college-english-majors-...
Comment linking /p/college-english-majors-cant-read
on “ChatGPT Pulse”Submitted College English majors can't read as a story · 70 points
HN discussionCharles Dickens was a very popular author. Modern English majors struggle to even "make basic inferences" from the text! https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/college-english-majors-...
Comment linking /p/college-english-majors-cant-read
on “The cultural decline of literary fiction”Submitted Reactions and follow up to College English Majors Can't Read as a story · 11 points
HN discussionCheck these out: https://patch.com/connecticut/across-ct/hartford-grad-sues-s... https://kittenbeloved.substack.com/p/mass-literacy-isnt
Comment linking /p/mass-literacy-isnt
on “The cultural decline of literary fiction”Submitted College English Majors Can't Read as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted College English majors can't read as a story · 6 points
HN discussionSubmitted College English majors can't read as a story · 3 points
HN discussion
