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Can we take a moment from this depressing article to appreciate the strange almost oxymoronic irony in the term “public prison”
by raydiatian 4y ago
Can we take a moment from this depressing article to appreciate the strange almost oxymoronic irony in the term “public prison”
- bheadmaster 4y agoWhat's oxymoronic about it? Public prison is prison run by the government, as opposed to a private company, similar to public schools and public transportation systems.
- raydiatian 4y agopublic: open prison: restricted
- bheadmaster 4y agopublic: of, relating to, or affecting all the people or the whole area of a nation or state Just because a word has one meaning, doesn't mean it's the only meaning.
- notahacker 4y agoA better example of the strange use of the word "public" is in England, where "public schools" specifically means "private schools"... or more specifically the subset of privately-run secular boarding schools that opened to any member of the public that could afford for their sons to attend, long before state schooling became a thing.
- HPsquared 4y agoI suppose prisons are also theoretically open to any member of the public.
- pelagicAustral 4y agoWell, they are. Family and friends can visit there.
- denton-scratch 4y agoMost english public schools are not secular.
- raydiatian 4y ago
- bheadmaster 4y agoI'm not mad. Why would you think I'm mad? Perhaps you're projecting your own emotions onto me. Assume good faith: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- raydiatian 4y agolol it’s so absurdly passively aggressively phrased nobody is buying it. This dude wants to debate if public really is a synonym of open or not, when the GP said “almost oxymoronic” what a mind job
- stavros 4y agoIsn't the GP you? You said "almost oxymoronic". Also, I'd expect the offices of the Tax Authority to be public property, but I wouldn't expect to be able to visit any of them any time I wanted, so "public" very concretely does not mean "open", it just means "owned by the commons".
- raydiatian 4y agohttps://www.thesaurus.com/browse/public https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/public
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stavros 4y agoI'll look at the thesaurus if I'm writing, thanks. For looking up the meaning of words, I use a dictionary.
- jjk166 4y agoAnd when someone says jumbo shrimp, they're clearly referring to the crustacean, but that doesn't make it any less an oxymoron.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hoseja 4y agoI mean, you can go visit...
- viridian 4y agoNo more ironic than a stationery jet, a loud pair of earmuffs, or even more apt, a secure, locked down public key.