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Comment by dogorman | Hacker News Reader

> Even the headline here has been massaged - originally this was a "key" witness but by the time it gets to HN, he's a "keystone" witness.

key: 1. Indispensable, supremely important. 2. Important, salient.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/key#Adjective

keystone: 1. (architecture) The top stone of an arch. 2. Something on which other things depend for support.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/keystone

I grew up in the "keystone state". As far as I am concerned these words mean precisely the same thing in this context, and neither has stronger implications than the other. Are you sure you're not the one spinning here?

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Well, maybe. But to me there can be several key witnesses and losing one will damage your case, but as your definition states, if you remove a keystone witness the case falls apart.

Tangentially, reading the indictment this witness seems to be neither. More to the point, OP felt the need to change the wording. That was a conscious act, not an accident.

If a "key witness" is can be lost without sinking the case, then they are not "Indispensable, supremely important" and were not actually key. If an indispensable, or supremely important witness is lost, then your case has been lost. That's what indispensable means to me.

What does indispensable mean to you? Do you think something that is indispensable can be dispensed?

You are welcome to ignore half of the definitions you posted and focus on the one that suits you best. I lean towards the second one you supplied, being "Important, salient" We can disagree on semantics, but my original point stands: the wording of the headline was changed. As another poster has asked, why would you choose to change a shorter, more common word for a longer, less common one if they mean exactly the same?

> "Important, salient"

A keystone is that. Keystones are key, take the keystone out of an arch and the arch collapses. Doesn't that make a keystone "important, salient"? I think it does. Both of those definitions support these words being synonyms. I quoted both definitions because I believe both support my point. (And I quoted both for 'keystone' because if I didn't, I figured you'd disingenuously attribute that omission to malfeasance.)

> As another poster has asked, why would you choose to change a shorter, more common word for a longer, less common one if they mean exactly the same?

My response to him applies to you as well. You would not be nitpicking such word choices if you were not looking for a crack to gain leverage in the conversation.

All that would be relevant if I were positing that key > keystone, but it's obviously the opposite so I'm not sure why you're trying to convince me that a keystone is important.

I'm not looking for a crack here and the "nitpicking" was a convenient example of how both sides are skewing reality to suit their ends.

Anyway, I notice that the title has now been changed to reflect the original headline so I guess somebody else thought they were different enough words to warrant changing it back again.

> I guess somebody else thought they were different enough words to warrant changing it back again.

Or dang thought to cut this fruitless tangent off at the knees. I am perfectly happy with the new headline, because it means the same thing as the old. If I were dang I'd change it too, for that reason. The new headline is still a damning indictment of US media.

> The new headline is still a damning indictment of US media.

It might be if it actually mentioned the US... or is that bit implied?

==You would not be nitpicking such word choices if you were not looking for a crack to gain leverage in the conversation.==

You would not be defending title manipulation if you were not trying to defend your own perceived leverage.

The new headline is perfectly acceptable and means the same thing as the old. This has been my position in this conversation since the start.

==and means the same thing as the old.==

Multiple people are telling you that it means something different in their experience. Personally, I have 3 keys to my house, but my house has only 1 keystone.

Why would you replace a 3-letter word with an 8-letter word that means the same thing? Especially when you have to type the entire word "key" to get to "keystone".

> why would you choose to change a shorter, more common word for a longer, less common one if they mean exactly the same?

I'm not the OP, but you're assuming this was copied and pasted and the word changed deliberately. I can think of a number of reasons why the different word was used, that has nothing to do with an attempt to mislead: e.g. autocorrect if typing it on mobile, genuine error (thinking it was actually 'keystone' in the original).

Journalists and editors swap out words all the time, particularly when they aren't explicitly quoting somebody. People who write for a living tend to like words and pick words form sets of synonyms that suit their personal preferences. Any story that has been written about by more than one writer/editor will almost certainly have headlines that mean the same thing using different words.

A current example grabbed from google news:

"Two dams in Inner Mongolia collapse after heavy rain"

"Two dams in China's Inner Mongolia collapse after torrential rain"

"Heavy rain" and "torrential rain" mean basically the same thing. Why does one headline use one phrase, and the other another? Is this some sort of malicious attempt to propagandize at us? Or is it just an editor/writer who fancies the word 'torrential'? I think it's the second.

Yes, I should have added that I see nothing wrong with the replacement of key with keystone here. Not sure what the big issue is. I was just surprised that someone who does object to it assumes a HN posting has been deliberately crafted to mislead when it could simply have been an innocent error.

I hate to say it, but Language is a theater of war in the modern world. English has a large and loose lexicon that gives manipulators plenty of room to make insinuations while still being technically correct.

I think this argument about semantics is distracting from the main topic

Arguing against Assange in 2010: don't say anything about Assange because it's better if nobody knows about WikiLeaks

Arguing against Assange in 2018: Vaguely refer to the allegations against him while making sure to avoid linking any detailed articles or starting a facts-based discussion.

Arguing against Assange in 2021: Okay, I know the US government is trying to arrange a show trial, but is key the same word as keystone?

The original point wasn't about semantics it was about the difficulty of parsing reality when both sides are so adept at managing spin that they don't even notice they're doing it.

Sorry you got tangled up with the details.

I don't think semantic details like whether a headline uses "key" or "keystone" are significant impediments to figuring out what's going on when it's easy to read what's going on and make the judgement that way.

There is plenty of distortion in the emotional affect created by phrasing, and plenty of ignorance in the abstract theory-of-policy level comment thread discourse, but fortunately there's nothing restraining us to operate on those once-removed levels.

True but that is one of the key defining elements of HN comment section: arguments about semantics.

I think it's really more a keystone element, thank you very much.

Thanks for the clarification ;)

You are still justifying your state falsifying evidence. What am I missing?

Wikileaks never did that btw.

> What am I missing?

That I am not justifying anything and that the US is not my state. Apart from that I think you're up to speed.

If they mean exactly the same thing, then the person who posted this article could have used the one that's actually in the title.

I think that is disingenuous; I don't think you would demand that people abstain from using synonyms in a less political context.

Yes they would. It’s a site guideline.

Your definitions show the difference and yet you are trying to tell us there is no difference.

Definition 2 of key, and definition 2 of keystone are in use here.

The witness is not indispensable nor something on which the case depends for support.

Therefore only definition 2 of key fits.

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