I think that the author is doing it deliberately, to put the reader in the shoes of someone who has a hard time understanding some of the words, and reinforce his point.

As a non-native English speaker there are 4 words in this article that I had to look up, which is significantly higher than a typical article from HN frontpage (usually it's 0, occasionally 1).

If anyone curious, the words are: pellucid, fusillades, pram (idk, why I never heard it. I knew the word "stroller", of course, but I never thought about different kinds of strollers), octogenarian (this one I could have guessed from Latin roots and context, was lazy).

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hn_go_brrrrr 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Pram is common in British English. I'm guessing you learned US English, which doesn't use it.

	▲	pm215 an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Though even in the UK I think it has a slightly old fashioned feel -- I feel like parents are more likely to have a pushchair than a pram.
	▲	KineticLensman 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Yes, as slang for ‘perambulator’, which is basically ‘stroller’
	▲	thaumasiotes 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The word pram doesn't exist in American English, true, but you'll learn it anyway if you ever read Peter Pan.