6 ms·
Hey, you taught me a new word! Cheers.
by BonesJustice 8y ago
Hey, you taught me a new word! Cheers.
- fb03 8y agoNice, for me it was a new word as well, even tho it was largely understandable by the radicals (in-/un- and fatig- + able) What I wonder is: (?) Is OP a native English speaker and is this word used in daily contexts, (or?) did he use it because he might not be an English speaker and he searched for the words in his own language and that is the word that came out, instead of the more common "tirelessly". (or?) he is a native speaker and he knows this word is not used in daily/common conversations... so, by using this different concoction, did he meant to translate some additional feeling? is "indefatigable" a stronger "tirelessly"? I know it's oddly specific but I am not a native speaker and insight into these odd ducks helps me build a maturer mind model of it all. Thank you.
- gvb 8y agoNative English speaker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Bright
- fb03 8y agoholy f. i should have known better. it is 'the' creator of D. wow. thank you.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- joppy 8y agoI think some of the third option, and also it’s fun to go to the trouble of digging out a lesser known word from the depths of your dictionary/brain to show just how much you appreciate something.
- skocznymroczny 8y agoindubitably
- beatgammit 8y agoI'm guessing the first. I'm a native speaker and I know this word. I don't use it in speaking (it's a bit if a mouthful), but I use it occasionally in writing. I think it has better imagery. When I hear "tireless", I think of being tired, but forcing myself to stay awake. When I hear "indefatigable", I think of someone playing sports or going on a long journey and pushing through the physical exhaustion. So yeah, a bit of the first and a bit of the third most likely. Walter Bright is the author of the D language, so I expect him to be intimately aware of the effort required, hence the more vivid imagery.
- pertymcpert 8y agoIt also confers a sense of an antagonist trying and failing to stop them.
- dtf 8y agoIt's an odd word, isn't it? I can't speak for the inimitable Walter Bright, but I suspect many English speakers like myself enjoy the pure sound of it - so many consonants in such a short space of time. Somewhat difficult to pronounce, slightly archaic, it perhaps confers a little more kudos than commoner alternatives. (And thoroughly deserved kudos, in this case!)
- pertymcpert 8y agoI really enjoy words like that. If I haven't seen it before, or it's been a while since I've seen it used, I need to take a bit of extra time to read and decode it. It also reminds me of words like 'irreparable', rolls off the tongue quickly. Now, when I hear someone use the word 'extant', especially during spoken language, I immediately think it's pretentious.
- WalterBright 8y agoPretentiousness comes from unusual words being used unnaturally, like someone learned the "word of the day" and is looking for excuses to insert it.
- jibal 8y agoThe idea of word use being pretentious is self-absorbed and anti-intellectual. I occasionally use the word "extant" because it's part of my vocabulary and is the best word to express its meaning, not to impress people that I don't even know exist prior to their complaint that using some word that is unfamiliar or uncommon to them is "pretentious".
- pertymcpert 8y agoCalm down. I only meant it in the sense that the sound of the word itself seems pretentious. All about the sound. It wasn't a character judgment.
- Someone 8y ago”Indefatigable” made me think “British warship”. Google showed me right. It was a World War One battle cruiser (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefatigable-class_battlecruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indefatigable-class_battlecrui...) The British Navy had a lot of ships with names that are good sounding archaic adjectives such as Indignant, Illustrious, Indomitable, Undaunted, Vivacious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ship_names_of_the_Royal_Navy_(I–L) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ship_names_of_the_Roya...) They also use names that seem bad choices today such as Inconstant, Inflexible and Terrible (that word changed meaning over the centuries. Originally, it meant “terror-inducing”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Terrible https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Terrible lists eight ships with that name, going back to 1694, so I guess that stil was the intended meaning for the one from 1944)
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoAny fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail would be familiar with the term: https://youtu.be/m9wdYy3tCm4?t=62 https://youtu.be/m9wdYy3tCm4?t=62
- Verdex_3 8y agoThe GURPS role playing system uses the term indefatigable as part of its game mechanics. Additionally, the Film Reroll Podcast uses GURPS as their game system. My guess is that OP either has played GURPS or listened to the Film Reroll. Also OP could just be really well read. Personally, I'm glad to see indefatigable in the wild (at least more in the wild than a game system and a pod cast). I think the word is really cool and I haven't found an opportunity to use it myself.
- etrevino 8y agoIt means persistent, tireless. It saves space and conveys more meaning than just tireless. I like it. I think it's a well-chosen word.
- saghm 8y agoAs another data point, I'm a native English speaker, and I hadn't heard the word before, but I was able to figure out the meaning (which I confirmed by googling it)
- WalterBright 8y agoI was born in America :-) I don't recall ever hearing the word, but it appears a lot in books I've read, even recently written ones. "indefatigable" fits what I wanted to convey better than "tirelessly". From the Cambridge English Dictionary: "always determined and energetic in trying to achieve something and never willing to admit defeat" Iain has had a plethora of reasons to abandon the project, and nobody would have blamed him. But he's persisted in the face of little encouragement, less support, and lots of complaining. It's a massive achievement. Indefatigable is the perfect word.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- fb03 8y agoThank you!
- dang 8y agoIt's a fine word, but probably we should detach this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325828 and mark it off-topic.
- brandmeyer 8y agoI appreciate it when you folks do this. But the UX for the reader isn't great, in that I must separately open your link to see the contextual parent of the split thread. Perhaps you can prefix the split post's content at the same indentation level as its own content with something like Moderator-edit: Split from $URL as offtopic, original parent was: $PARENT or somesuch would help.
- dang 8y agoWould it work better as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325498#18325828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18325498#18325828?
- marvy 8y agoyes! As an extra bonus, make these links easier to find the UI, so I don't have to inspect the HTML to find them.
- dang 8y agoI don't understand what "make these links easier to find the UI" means - can you explain?
- mkingston 8y agoI think what GP means is make the anchor links easier to find, such that one can right-click somewhere in the UI and copy an anchor link to a comment. I'm not aware that they're available anywhere, presumably you constructed the anchor link manually, or examined the source?