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Comment by igravious | Hacker News Reader

> continues its descent into stupidity

Nice figurative use of the word descent there.

Would you also object to "train wreck" used metaphorically being catalogued in the dictionary? Are these not useful phrases for a language learner? How about "danger money"? How about "white lie"? "Red line"? Where is your red line when it comes to these things?

Anyway maybe dictionaries don't only enumerate bare words. Who made that rule? Lexicographically why make a distinction between single word nouns and multi-word noun phrases? Also, would you ban phrasal verbs. We're allowed to enumerate "set" but "set down", "set up", "set upon", "set aside", … all these are verboten or are they A-OK?

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The problem is, what constitutes a word? Speaking as a native speaker of German: If it's idiomatic, make it a compound word, as with "setup",whereas "set up" is an oxymoron.

Of course compounds are no solution either unless you want to have runonsentence-monstrosities. English speakers recognized that and treat compound nouns as noun phrases. So it depends a lot on the feeling of a word. If it is recognizable as a single entity that cannot be split up into constituent parts, then it's a word. Otherwise it is a phrase. And phrases typically don't belong in a wordbook. Otherwise you there would be really no end to it. Wiktionary has a rule to include everything with at least three notable usage examples; And it has another rule not to include "sum of part" phrases. So a lot of discussion revolves around whether something is sum of parts, which is quite subjective. A dumpster really is just something where something is dumped. I can only guess that "dumpster fire" proliferates because it rhymes with dumb. Hot garbage certainly is sum of parts if garbage is readily understood figuratively. Dumpster fire on the other hand just has too many syllables to be recognized as a single entity. It's really just sum of parts, still though, it's a heap of trash that's set on fire deliberately and quite well contained.

The term philology is quite suitable as analogue to philosophy, because it is not an exact science. So there are experts who have quite a good feeling for language. They need to release new words every now and then to stay relevant. And to keep the words relevant. By their own definition, I guess, those dictionaries are a dumpster fire.

If you think the phrase "dumpster fire" is the sum of its parts, then you don't know what it means.

And if you don't know what it means, a dictionary can help.

I think I pretty clearly showed that I understand what it means. The individual parts, each in a particular sense, dumb-store-burning, explain the sense rather well. If this is not readily obvious to a recipient, then it's misused and no dictionary can help that, if enough misuse occurs. But don't get me wrong, I have a dictionary under my pillow (my phone). On the other hand, obscurity might be intentional, so popularization (by inclusion in a dictionary and making a big fuzz about it in the news no less), will only drive the invention of new obscure terms. Which is probably a delight for every dictionary editor. And I choose to largely ignore it and fuel the topic with flame bait, probably because the term in question is negative in principle, eliciting negative emotions.

You've shown that you misunderstand the term. Your misunderstanding includes nonsense examples like "those dictionaries are a dumpster fire". Nobody else would say that.

The "dumb-store-burning" thing is something you made up and you've already managed to convince yourself it's the real definition.

Folk etymologies are never a good way to define a term, but this one is particularly weird and out of nowhere.

> Nobody else would say that.

calibrate your sarcasm detector, it's broken.

I know what a dumpster fire is in the broadest sense, a shit show, a farce, perhaps a tire fire that is toxic and impossible to extinguish.

The rhyme on dumb I think is certainly effective. Sure, it's my own observation.

> you've already managed to convince yourself it's the real definition

I prefer to speak with authority and leave my guesswork implicit. Mistakes I make then are problematic. I'm not above mistakes, so the assumption that I might be wrong is implicit as well. That's only fair, in fact it seems the only way to speak with conviction if the other site asserts authority in the same way. I call it ''objective'', when I can avoid making ad-hominem arguments -- like you do. Rhetorical question: Are you enjoying that?

I agree with your comment, but isn’t it “thin red line”? Or am I thinking of something else?

Thin red line is the numerically weak but functionally strong force required to maintain an empire (British redcoats).

Metaphorically, it's the bubble-skin that separates internal order from external chaos.

Cool. I hadn't known the exact provenance of that. There's also "thin blue line" meaning police force[0] (separating decent folk from criminals and chaos) as opposed to a military force[1] which is a red line.

I would add that red lines are topical with Brexit[2] negotiations in the media, lines beyond which this British government is unwilling to step.

[0] Movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(1988_film) and TV show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Blue_Line_(TV_series)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_Red_Line_(1998_film) – one of the best films about war ever in my opinion

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/05/theres...

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