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by jasoncartwright 10mo ago
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- tdfirth 10mo agoAmerican hegemony, and all that.
- firecall 10mo agoIn the US they spell it as nonze.
- lagniappe 10mo agoNo we don't.
- nophunphil 10mo agoPretty positive that was a joke/bait…
- firecall 10mo agoIt absolutely was a joke Slightly absurdist non-sensical humour I’ll admit, but none the less, a joke :-)
- nophunphil 10mo agoThe best kind :)
- nine_k 10mo agoWell, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_word https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonce_word It makes me sad when a secondary meaning, which does not even overcome the main meaning in usage, becomes an obstacle for the normal use of a word. It's like seeing a rainbow as a sexualized symbol not fit for children, because it also happens to be used by LGBTQ+ community. (BTW, since you're a Brit: did people stop using the word "fag" to refer to a cigarette?)
- bigstrat2003 10mo agoI mean, it is sad. But unfortunately that is what happened with "master", "slave", "whitelist", and "blacklist". No reasonable person construed these as offensive or having any implications about the wider world. But there are people in our profession who are determined to take offense where none is given, and unfortunately they got their way.
- nine_k 10mo agoWell, "slave" has a pretty direct main meaning of an oppressed person doing forced labor. The word "master" is much milder in this regard (compare "master's degree" and "slave's degree"). The word "nonce" in normal usage seems even more removed from any pejorative secondary meanings.
- nine_k 10mo agoMore to your point, yes, taking offense can be turned into a weapon: https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship-small-minority/ https://nassimtaleb.org/2016/08/intolerant-wins-dictatorship...
- jasoncartwright 10mo agoAmusing to have my throwaway comment replied to with links to earnest points from prominent essayists. Never change, hacker news!
- jasoncartwright 10mo agoYes, words have multiple meanings - but only some words are apparently worthy of censorship - which is my point. > did people stop using the word "fag" to refer to a cigarette? Yes, seems so. I've not heard that in at least a decade
- diath 10mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context
- harshreality 10mo agoThat didn't stop people from throwing a fit over master-slave terminology in software (having nothing to do with slavery), going so far as to rename long-standing development branch names, as well as put significant effort into removing such terms from the code itself and any documentation.
- tomhow 10mo agoWe don't need to bring this kind of thing up. We're not school children and most of us are technology professionals, so the meaning is clear. These guidelines are relevant here: Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes. Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead. Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. ... name collisions ... . They're too common to be interesting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html