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The term “third world” does not mean something like “third rate.” The first world is the Western bloc, under the influence of the USA. The second world is the E
by DowsingSpoon 7y ago
The term “third world” does not mean something like “third rate.” The first world is the Western bloc, under the influence of the USA. The second world is the Eastern bloc, under the influence of the USSR. The third world is everyone else.
I think we should stop using these terms.
- owldimoon 7y ago<comment reiterating that word usage changes and being a stickler for "right" definitions is a waste of time> just because you think a term should be used one way or another doesn't mean your opinion is at all valuable. it's more useful to go with the wave of society rather than trying to imbue change on an obscure web forum.
- jobigoud 7y agoStill valuable to point out that a number of people will not understand the sentence in the way the person intends it to be understood. In this case it's clear from context, but sometimes not so much.
- jdcro 7y agoHis opinion is valuable, just as much as yours. Don't be an ass. And he happens to be correct, so it's probably more valuable.
- 100100010001 7y agoHow so?
- dang 7y agoCould you please follow the site guidelines when posting here? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- jamesmp98 7y agoI disagree, almost everyone understands the colloquial usage of the term and it's rather pendantic and useless to complain about it
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- robotresearcher 7y agoThat ship sailed long ago. Like the use of ‘literally’ to mean ‘figuratively’, words mean what they are frequently used to mean. Fighting it is futile.
- Swenrekcah 7y agoI agree in principle but you should still literally slap anyone that says they “could care less” when they mean they couldn’t
- Retric 7y agoAs it’s used, “I could care less” works as a sarcastic statement much better than “I couldn’t care less” as a literal one. Generally it’s possible for me to care less about some minute difference, but in absolute terms I don’t care enough for it to matter.
- 100100010001 7y agoYou damn! I felt that slap ;) :P
- jdcro 7y agoThat sounds like a poor justification for simply using the wrong phrase. I've never heard it used sarcastically, just incorrectly.
- shkkmo 7y ago'literally' is often used figuratively to mean 'figuratively', that doesn't change it's literal meaning :D
- pault 7y agoI agree those terms are antiquated, and I suggest "developed" and "developing" instead.
- lentil_soup 7y agoI think developed and developing is also strange. It implies an universal direction countries have to follow where reality is way more complex. We should instead stop trying to simplify countries and segregating them into categories.
- rahulnair23 7y agoDeveloped and developing are also terms that are arbitrary. Human Development Indices of some countries that are considered developing today exceed those of developed countries when these terms were first used. In common use it implies a strict hierarchy in rather simplistic terms.
- the_pwner224 7y agoShould not stagnant/stagnating also be added to that list? And also a negative term (staganation is neutral)? Not every undeveloped country is developing.
- Bakary 7y agoAs someone who grew up in a third world country, I actually think it's a very apt descriptor of certain patterns and problems that continually occur across seemingly unrelated cultures.
- toby- 7y agoNo, this is no longer what these terms mean in common parlance. (There is no arbiter of language; words are imbued with meaning through usage. People use "first world" and "third world" quite differently now than during the Cold War.)
- matthewaveryusa 7y agoIt was invented in the 50s in france and literally is translated to 1/3rd world (tiers monde.) third (as in third place) would translate to troisieme. Poor translation basically.
- Frondo 7y agoThese words are no longer used in common parlance at all. Now people use "developing nation" and "developed nation," and "second world" never evolved to mean "somewhere less poor than dirt-floor huts but less rich than London". About once a year I see someone make that mistake; it's not common, just a mistake. But agreed, there's no arbiter of language for English, and we all understood the original poster, which is really the important part.
- mieseratte 7y ago> These words are no longer used in common parlance at all. > it's not common, just a mistake. What's the difference between "common use" and "mistaken use" exactly? I've heard phrases like "third-world [pejorative]" thrown around here and there over the years. Is that a mistake or a change in common use over time?
- Frondo 7y agoFirst/second/third world stopped being used by academics and journalists, oh gosh, maybe a decade or two ago? After the fall of the Soviet union, but I don't remember how long after. Developed/developing nation replaced them. As someone else pointed out, "second world" always referred to the Eastern Bloc countries (the soviet states and those allied with them). It never meant "somewhere in between first and third world, in terms of quality of life". That's the mistake. The language shift was from first/second/third world to developed/developing nation, the mistake is using second world to mean something other than an eastern bloc country; you'd probably be understood, but that meaning was not ever in widespread use.
- layoutIfNeeded 7y agoAnd they are called crackers, not hackers!!! /s
- dang 7y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20118799 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20118799 and marked it off-topic.