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Comment by deadbeeves | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what you want me to conclude from this. Yes, "jizz" is indeed a vulgar slang in English. By a different etymology it is also the fictional name of a fictional musical genre that's similar to real jazz. By yet another etymology it is also the behavioral characteristics of a bird that enable a birdwatcher to identify it. It would be entirely correct to say "look at that jizz, that's definitely a golden-crested pygmy goose". Someone else listening in might be confused, but that's their problem.

Words have multiple meanings. To ignore this and require that everyone just uses those meanings that you personally are aware of is an unreasonable request.

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Sure, and nothing is stopping you from saying that Max Rebo is a jizz master—go crazy! I'm just noting that despite (presumably) there being no vulgar intent behind the term, it doesn't change the fact that most people will read "Max Rebo is a jizz master" and immediately think "lol jizz."

Regardless of whether your intentions are pure, if a certain term instills certain associations in your audience, you can either change it to remove the association or live with the consequences of not doing so. But it's not the audience's fault that "jizz" has an existing meaning that's cemented in their minds, and your newfangled space jazz probably won't supplant that.

The Star Wars universe is fictional. Do you honestly believe that the author from our universe who came up with this name was not aware of the (Earth universe) meaning of the word 'jizz'?

When did I say that, and how is it relevant if they knew it or not?

You said 'by a different etymology'. It's not a different etymology if they knew and were referring to the other meaning.

That's not how etymology is determined. The etymology of a word describes the reason why it's spelled or spoken the way it is. "Jizz" was chosen because it sounds like "jazz", but different. We can infer that the person who chose the word meant to convey that jizz music is like jazz music but different.

We can suppose that if the slang for sperm didn't exist that the writer would definitely have chosen "jezz", "juzz", or "jozz" instead, but personally I don't have any evidence to make that claim.

It's hard to believe you're not simply trying to satirise the people jvns complained about, who repeatedly pretend to believe that an obvious choice of words to make a sexual joke was not chosen for that reason.

I guess I'm just less confident than you in my ability to read people's minds. But I do find it funny that we're arguing about intent when the initial point was that it didn't matter.

> “Jizz” was chosen because it sounds like “jazz”, but different. We can infer that the person who chose the word meant to convey that jizz music is like jazz music but different.

“Jizz” in English is etymologically closely related to “jazz” in English, which some sources also attest to having a (historical) slang use identical to that of “jizz”, so, while you are absolutely correct about the point of choosing the word, that point is quite compatible with the person doing so of being aware of the slang use of “jizz”.

A separate question that further complicates this is whether the writer was aware of that etymological connection.

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