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Comment by dowager_dan99 | Hacker News Reader

I still believe this is a windmill at which we should tilt. I used to report to the CTO and he accused me of being "overly pedantic". I agreed with the pedantic part but no the "overly" modifier. Words matter, especially when they are communicated widely in an adhoc, unplanned manner from someone in power. I don't understand how these people can be so blind to the subtext of what they say; do they really only hear the literal message?

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Language is defined by the masses.

We've lost "hacker" and "crypto" and "literally" and "decimated". (plus every political word I can think of, but do not care to introduce into this well-mannered thread)

We will never get them back, so those of us who like words are stuck avoiding them, overclarifying our usage, and accepting that everyone else will use them incorrectly.

Calling attention to ourselves as the losers of these battles isn't particularly productive.

This. Statements like the grandparents are in the general category of

- "life isn't fair"

- "people are bigoted against the outgroup",

- "brutal wars of expansion are a thing".

Like, yeah. Obviously. But that's supposed to be the kind of thing you push back against, when you don't like the result, not fatalistically accept as some fundamental invariant of reality. That's how progress happens.

Honestly, they probably don’t even hear (or care) about the literal message. It’s cool, and if they don’t push it they won’t be cool.

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