6 ms·
Not a comment on the content of the article, but I find it pretty obnoxious when an author uses a word like "hereodox" which has a much more commonly known near
by sushisource 9y ago
Not a comment on the content of the article, but I find it pretty obnoxious when an author uses a word like "hereodox" which has a much more commonly known nearly-exact synonym "unorthodox". It's hard to imagine any reason for that beyond "look at how clever of a writer I am".
- dcre 9y agoI find it obnoxious when a commenter whines about a single word in the first line of a long article. It's hard to imagine any reason for that beyond "look at how good of a complainer I am".
- probablycorey 9y agoI agree with both of you.
- DonHopkins 9y agoI think he was trying to be ironic by being picky and pedantic about the exact meaning of a word, while spelling it wrong at the same time. I took it as a successful attempt at self deprecating humor, by criticizing "clever writers" while ignoring the squiggly red line his spelling corrector drew under the word he was talking about.
- dang 9y agoNearly-exact is definitely not exact. To my ear 'heterodox' connotes difference and pluralism while 'unorthodox' is more of a negation. (Of course other mileages may vary.) But different words always exist for a reason—if they didn't, one would have fallen out of use. Pretentiousness is not enough to keep a word alive!
- wtvanhest 9y agoAt risk of sounding foolish... I even read yours/his comments, and I am still confused. I am fairly confident that I have never seen the word heterodox used before.
- justin66 9y agoThat's because it means exactly the same thing as "unorthodox" and almost everyone simply says that. Hence the discussion - you aren't alone.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- DonHopkins 9y agoWhen given the choice of a naming a variable notSomethingDescriptive or somethingElseDescriptive, I always choose the positive name, because it's easier to understand in logical expressions, and reduces double negation. It's better to describe what something is, instead of what it's not. So unOrthoDox is more negative (and more complex) than heteroDox, because it begins with the prefix "un".
- justin66 9y agoYou're right, but on the other hand, it's probably not best to use words that few are familiar with if you are trying to make yourself understood. On the gripping hand, a variable name is just a variable name and its true meaning doesn't really depend on its name at all, so okay, go for the burn. (especially if you're writing Java code)
- dang 9y agoFor each of us there are good words we haven't seen before. That's lucky, since life would be duller otherwise.
- laxatives 9y agoThe word aside, he's not wrong. That article is filled with flowery non-sense, making long prosaic paragraphs from thin-air. I like reading long articles, but this doesn't contribute much.
- rl3 9y agoI respectfully disagree. The article made considerable effort to evade techno-solutionist fantasies.
- rl3 9y agoNobody? Tough crowd.
- dang 9y agoQuite possibly! But a bad article can contain a good word. I wanted to stand up for 'heterodox', first because words are my friends and I like my friends, and second because HN is a textual place and good English is part of the business here.
- DonHopkins 9y agoHave you tried deconstructing it? http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html How To Deconstruct Almost Anything: My Postmodern Adventure by Chip Morningstar, June 1993 "Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." -- Donald Norman
- justin66 9y agoI wonder if you can offer a pair of online dictionary definitions that illustrates what you see as the difference in meaning between the two words. (I bet you can't)
- dang 9y agoLook closely enough and you'll see that they all do. One meaning for 'heterodox' is 'holding unorthodox opinions'. That's an attribute of the person, not the opinion. The royal road to clarifying subtle differences in language, however, is etymology, and there the difference is plain. Hetero = different, dox = opinion, ortho = correct. So the distinction here is something like "diverse opinion" vs. "incorrect opinion", which to me seems clearly meaningful.
- justin66 9y agoCool.
- pvg 9y agoThe royal road to clarifying subtle differences in language, however, is etymology, and there the difference is plain. Is it? (to either of those things). In current English usage, 'unorthodox' doesn't mean 'incorrect' and doesn't connote 'incorrect'.
- DonHopkins 9y agoEtymology be damned: I'm still trying to figure out if he meant "royal" as in "Royale with Cheese" or "royal" as in "royal pain in the ass".
- dragonwriter 9y ago> The royal road to clarifying subtle differences in language, however, is etymology No, it's not. Etymology tells you where a word came from, not what it means (either in denotation or connotation) in current usage. It will often be completely misleading in trying to unpack subtle differences in meaning.
- b_emery 9y agoNot sure if I agree with your assessment, but the author certainly loves the word - it appears in the article 5 times. Maybe it's a technical term with a precise, widely used definition in the ethnography field?
- throeaweigh 9y agoi got to know Götz and spoke to him about his time 'in the field' at HARC you can look at your complaint from at least two perspectives first, he is german and english is a second, or possibly third or fourth, language as the saying goes 'there's a perfect german word for that', but in this case Götz was able to find the perfect word in a second language second, one of his favourite revelations from his time at HARC was the inhabitants', and i argued many 'creators', nearly obsessive, nearly detrimental, preoccupation with 'naming things' every new idea, every new prototype, every new function, every new variable needs a name and Götz would watch as the team labored over 'what to call it' a practice that fascinated Götz and when he recalled it to the room and those of us who had been there confirmed the same preoccupations he erupted in glee so to call out Götz for naming something exactly as it was meant to be conveyed i think would engender in him a pride of assimilating this ritual