4 ms·
See also hackers not happy about hackers being called hackers.
by jgrahamc 5y ago
See also hackers not happy about hackers being called hackers.
- cblconfederate 5y agobut they're not hackers, they 're mbas
- criddell 5y agoAnd don't forget the begs-the-question crusaders.
- jgrahamc 5y agoI have no idea what that means.
- technothrasher 5y agoBe glad. Misuse of the phrase "beg the question" is like salt in my ears. But I mostly keep my mouth shut as it's a battle hopelessly lost at this point.
- dnautics 5y agothe way to fight back is to aggressively use it correctly when it's due. E.G: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29291894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29291894
- criddell 5y agoWhat would you say determines correct usage of a word of phrase?
- dnautics 5y agoMe. What response were you expecting?
- criddell 5y agoI assume you considered a bunch of different perspectives and concluded that one is more correct than the others. I was curious about the reasoning that went into your decision. I went through that process myself a while ago and came to a different conclusion based on the idea that the meaning of a word or phrase in conversation is determined by what it communicates. I qualify with "in conversation" because there are audiences and venues where that's not necessarily true (like in a courtroom).
- dnautics 5y agoIt's completely arbitrary, from case to case. To answer your question about "begging the question" I think the concept of "circular reasoning" is important enough to have a cutesy phrase associated with it.
- criddell 5y agoThat's interesting. I agree that the concept is important and that's why I avoid begs-the-question. Most of the time it doesn't communicate what you hope it does.
- sowbug 5y agohttp://begthequestion.info/ http://begthequestion.info/ TL;DR: almost every common usage of the phrase is incorrect.
- criddell 5y agoThe "raises the question" use far outstrips the "laying claim to the principle" use. In general it's wrong to call either use incorrect. I'd avoid it entirely. The original phrase is a bad translation and the modern use triggers prescriptivists.
- OJFord 5y agoI've seen it used correctly just once: by a lecturer of Contemporary Philosophy marking my essay...
- JohnFen 5y agoAnd the most irritating part of the redefinition of "literally" to mean the opposite of literally... there's no clear synonym that people can use when they literally mean literally.
- glenjamin 5y agoactually.
- JohnFen 5y ago"Actually" means something rather different than "literally", though.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Frondo 5y agoLiterally has been used as a term of hyperbole since at least 1769. That one's hard for me to get too worked up about. :-) https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-literally https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-lite...
- MiguelX413 5y agoAnd singular they has been in use since the 13th century. Such semantic gaps really aren't a big deal tbh.
- OJFord 5y ago'literally literally'? (Oh god..) While I'm here there's also 'I guess' (suppose), 'I feel like' (think), and 'So' (I'm about to start a sentence).
- NoGravitas 5y agoMy pet peeve of 2014 was when my manager started referring to computer security as "cyber".
- st_goliath 5y agoYes, that was the time when politicians and managers for some reason suddenly decided to exhume that 90ies buzzword (32C3 press conference montage from around that time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY6KkRsS26M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY6KkRsS26M).