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Comment by simplicio | Hacker News Reader

Definition of lost art

    :  something usually requiring some skill that not many people do any more

ex: Writing letters has become something of a lost art.

"https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lost%20art"

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I cant help but chuckle at the exact definition being thrown at me. I guess that by definition this is a lost art. I still think it's a bit over the top though.

I hear what your saying, taken individually you'd think a "lost art" would literally be an art no one remembers how to do. But like a lot of compound words and phrases in English, its actual meaning as used is different. In my experience, its pretty much always used in the sense of the article.

(SNL had a whole bit on this back in the 90's: "a chickpea is neither a chick nor a pea, discuss")

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