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On the other hand, it's quite nice to be on Hacker News where someone will post the definition :) ... now I know what that phrase means when I hear it in anothe

On the other hand, it's quite nice to be on Hacker News where someone will post the definition :) ... now I know what that phrase means when I hear it in another context.

na85 10y ago
Nah, it's just the standard HN-ian modus operandi of misusing Latin phrases like a priori which doesn't actually mean "prior" or "prior knowledge" despite the incessant use here on this site. How else would I attempt to appear superior? :^)
- naedish 10y ago
  Except he used it correctly here, didn't he? He could have said condicio sine qua non but my understanding is that either would be accepted usage.
- Jugurtha 10y ago
  If f is a function with the domain of thoughts and the codomain of the words used, f is almost never injective. You can't always know the thoughts based solely on the words. There's almost never a one-to-one mapping. You can't always read minds. Think about it like this: I understand that it might be perceived by some English speakers as "sophistication" (more on that later), but for a lot of others who speak other languages, there is absolutely no pretense of sophistication in using latin expressions for this is both how we have always talked and what we picked up along the way in life. Expressions such as "a priori", "grosso modo", "primo/secundo/tertio/quarto", "sine qua non", "ad nauseam", "a fortiori", "a contrario", "status quo", "de facto/de jure", are very common in colloquial French. Others, for example: "quod erat demonstrandum", "reductio ad absurdum", and some of the aforementioned mostly were picked up inmaths classes/books. I learned most of this stuff as a child because people just talked like that around me. Do I have to appologize because someone thinks I'm doing it to appear superior? That's similar to some people who think someone is arrogant just because he's good looking. Doesn't this feeling tell them more about themselves than about the hypothetical arrogance/sophistication attempt? Think of it another way: If I work in the sun and get a tan, why on earth would you assume that my tan is pretentious? Seems silly to connect the two, right? But they were connected in the past: the expression blue blood, after all, that is used to describe nobility came from the fact they were so pale their veins we apparent, contrary to the peasants who had to work in the sun and were tanned.. What used to indicate "low-birth" now has become attractive. We're funny that way. To get back to what I said, this is not unique to English speaking people. I was raised with two languages home + one street language + one school language. Other children from poor families (one street language + one school language) preceived this as a sophistication attempt because they perceived me as someone coming from means. I wasn't. They associated speaking that language with wealth; I didn't. It didn't even cross my mind. Then again, it's not even about wealth: they didn't mind someone like them (farmer) having money.. but they loathed people they considered "fancy" (for them, educated meant fancy). Some people here have this stereotype (the correlation is that they're mostly people from poor neighborhoods) because they don't understand basic logic: "A implies B" doesn't mean "B implies A". They think "People from wealthy fancy families speak French", so they go the other way around and say "People who speak French come from wealthy fancy families". But then again, it's not about latin phrases, wealth, or french, for some people in France would consider someone speaking in English as attempting to appear superior. And it's not even about France for some people in Egypt think people who speak English try to seem superior. How 'bout that! You wouldn't consider English fancy, would you?. But a lot of people around the world do. What's the conclusion? The conclusion is that this isn't about the other, it's about us and our thought processes, our insecurities and assumptions. The conclusion is that if you perceive what someone says to be an attempt to be sophisticated, maybe you can start with an assumption check: can you for a fact read minds? Does your assumption tell you something about yourself more than it does about the other? It does. I'm not being judgemental, I just find the way we think fascinating. I spend a lot of time trying do destroy my own arguments and prove myself to know nothing. I also play pool against myself, keep score, and laugh at myself when I botch a shot.
- DrScump 10y ago
  A relevant documentary on the importance of proper Latin grammar and usage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8

On the other hand, it's quite nice to be on Hacker News where someone will post the definition :) ... now I know what that phrase means when I hear it in another context.

na85 10y ago

Nah, it's just the standard HN-ian modus operandi of misusing Latin phrases like a priori which doesn't actually mean "prior" or "prior knowledge" despite the incessant use here on this site. How else would I attempt to appear superior? :^)

naedish 10y ago
Except he used it correctly here, didn't he? He could have said condicio sine qua non but my understanding is that either would be accepted usage.
Jugurtha 10y ago
If f is a function with the domain of thoughts and the codomain of the words used, f is almost never injective. You can't always know the thoughts based solely on the words. There's almost never a one-to-one mapping. You can't always read minds. Think about it like this: I understand that it might be perceived by some English speakers as "sophistication" (more on that later), but for a lot of others who speak other languages, there is absolutely no pretense of sophistication in using latin expressions for this is both how we have always talked and what we picked up along the way in life. Expressions such as "a priori", "grosso modo", "primo/secundo/tertio/quarto", "sine qua non", "ad nauseam", "a fortiori", "a contrario", "status quo", "de facto/de jure", are very common in colloquial French. Others, for example: "quod erat demonstrandum", "reductio ad absurdum", and some of the aforementioned mostly were picked up inmaths classes/books. I learned most of this stuff as a child because people just talked like that around me. Do I have to appologize because someone thinks I'm doing it to appear superior? That's similar to some people who think someone is arrogant just because he's good looking. Doesn't this feeling tell them more about themselves than about the hypothetical arrogance/sophistication attempt? Think of it another way: If I work in the sun and get a tan, why on earth would you assume that my tan is pretentious? Seems silly to connect the two, right? But they were connected in the past: the expression blue blood, after all, that is used to describe nobility came from the fact they were so pale their veins we apparent, contrary to the peasants who had to work in the sun and were tanned.. What used to indicate "low-birth" now has become attractive. We're funny that way. To get back to what I said, this is not unique to English speaking people. I was raised with two languages home + one street language + one school language. Other children from poor families (one street language + one school language) preceived this as a sophistication attempt because they perceived me as someone coming from means. I wasn't. They associated speaking that language with wealth; I didn't. It didn't even cross my mind. Then again, it's not even about wealth: they didn't mind someone like them (farmer) having money.. but they loathed people they considered "fancy" (for them, educated meant fancy). Some people here have this stereotype (the correlation is that they're mostly people from poor neighborhoods) because they don't understand basic logic: "A implies B" doesn't mean "B implies A". They think "People from wealthy fancy families speak French", so they go the other way around and say "People who speak French come from wealthy fancy families". But then again, it's not about latin phrases, wealth, or french, for some people in France would consider someone speaking in English as attempting to appear superior. And it's not even about France for some people in Egypt think people who speak English try to seem superior. How 'bout that! You wouldn't consider English fancy, would you?. But a lot of people around the world do. What's the conclusion? The conclusion is that this isn't about the other, it's about us and our thought processes, our insecurities and assumptions. The conclusion is that if you perceive what someone says to be an attempt to be sophisticated, maybe you can start with an assumption check: can you for a fact read minds? Does your assumption tell you something about yourself more than it does about the other? It does. I'm not being judgemental, I just find the way we think fascinating. I spend a lot of time trying do destroy my own arguments and prove myself to know nothing. I also play pool against myself, keep score, and laugh at myself when I botch a shot.
DrScump 10y ago
A relevant documentary on the importance of proper Latin grammar and usage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHEwiAy8