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Ask HN: Why do many posters re-use common phrases?
I have seen some common phrases so many times on here: “table stakes”, “orthogonal” and “dark patterns” are examples.
Why do you guys keep re using these phrases and others? ESPECIALLY orthogonal - how is that a word that’s meant to be commonly used in speech?
- jjgreen 6y ago"Changes in A have no effect on B, and vice versa" is a bit more cumbersome that "A is orthogonal to B".
- abhinav22 6y agoIsn’t it easier to say A is independent from B?
- a3n 6y agoExactly the same number of words.
- gostsamo 6y agoOrthogonal adds the idea that the two could be combined and achieve something more, a.k.a it would imply the use of the word "synergy" as well which might be even more exotic for the OP.
- jjgreen 6y agoOrthogonal also seems to me to be more symmetric, independence (for example in the political sense) need not be: Scotland gaining independence from the UK does not imply the converse in a natural sense.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pmontra 6y agoDark patterns is technical jargon from web development / marketing https://www.darkpatterns.org/ https://www.darkpatterns.org/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_pattern Orthogonal is also technical jargon from math. I suppose that many people here have a math background (CS, engineering, etc.)
- abhinav22 6y agoDark patterns I get to some degree; orthogonal should not be used so frequently in sentences
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cblconfederate 6y agoBut why? Using it is orthogonal to being part of the tech crowd. It's a widely known geometric term
- a3n 6y agoOrthogonal is a word that's commonly used in technical speech, and given this population, it's often used in non-technical discussion, as described in the post by jjgreen. Similar for dark patterns. Another focus of HN is startups. Table stakes as a gambling term is shorthand for similar non-gambling, non-startup discussions. Jargon among a population is normal. EDIT: When I was in the Navy in the 70s, and most Navy ships were still steam powered, "steaming" among us was jargon for staying out all night on liberty and partying hard.
- BitwiseFool 6y agoI posit that people are primed to use words and phrases they've seen recently. Especially terms that are known, yet uncommon, because they stand out so much. There could also be a frequency illusion happening to you, where once you make notice of something you start to see it show up in other places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion Perhaps you'll notice more people using the word 'posit' after reading this.
- the__alchemist 6y agoOrthogonal's a useful word, and I hadn't noticed it as a trend; have been using it when appropriate for years. It draws an analogy to linear algebra, and the sciences that use it. "Dark patterns" caught my attention - have seen it here many times over the past 2 months, but have yet to see it anywhere else, or even here before recently. It's a general term used to describe a specific thing.
- randomopining 6y agoHaha! Dude Ive been wanting to make the same post. The worst by far is “trivial”. Every pseudo-nerd here uses it in every freaking sentence haha.
- abhinav22 6y agoExactly!!! Haha
- thinkingemote 6y agoPartly it's a copying and adopting mechanism. Words become fashionable. One obvious phrase used in the media that has been recently been adopted in the last 10 years is "optics": https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07FOB-onlanguage-t.html https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07FOB-onlanguage... (Dark patterns was first adopted in 2010, for example) Partly it's pattern recognition on your/our behalf. We notice something new, then something again, and there's a pattern. Without actual data on the frequency of words and phrases we wouldn't really know either way. Similar to those charts / graphs of NYT could be a good start, but for HN e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23981380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23981380 Maybe the search results below could be hacked?
- bdr 6y agoThese things come and go: virality, selling shovels, uncanny valley, Dunning-Kruger, Overton window, Dunbar's number... While there is some signaling and "everything looks like a nail"-ness happening, I think on balance it's are a good thing. These concepts, including the ones you mentioned, are genuinely useful. Their hype cycles are a collective process by which we figure out when and where the concepts are most useful, and then they settle into their place.
- techrat 6y ago> I have seen some common phrases so many times on here: “table stakes”, “orthogonal” and “dark patterns” are examples. That is the nature of language. When a specific term has been established to describe a specific thing (noun, phenomena, etc), it enters the lexicon, so to speak. It's how we, as English speakers, can understand each other when we say 'feet off the couch' and 'food on the table', whereas table, feet, food and couch are all now specific things described by specific terms. The 'dark patterns' one is new to me, too. We're witnessing new words/terms being created that likely will be normal to everyone 10 years down the line. Enjoy the moment. (Edit: Upon looking up 'dark patterns', I see that it was coined about 10 years ago. So now that means we're seeing the coined term gaining prominence. Neat.)
- quickthrower2 6y agoThey are great phrases that once learned have very specific meanings. Orthogonal is an efficient word. Otherwise I’d have to say something like “application speed and application security are two issues that can be worked on independently in such a way that you can improve or degrade one without improving and degrading the other and thus you can focus on one issue at a time”
- dalmo3 6y agoThe real question is "why not?"