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Comment by LoganDark | Hacker News Reader

"Woe" is also sometimes used to tell someone to just suck it up and deal with it. In those cases it is a way to make fun of someone for being too sensitive or complaining too much.

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sure, but what I was pointing out here is that "woe betide you" is a specific idiomatic phrase. it's usually used as a threat, i.e. "woe betide you if you do that".

I didn't see it as a threat here at all. I think it was just pointing out an underserved part of the population when it comes to this. And I think "withhold your woe" was meant to say that getting out of your comfort zone can be beneficial sometimes (or in other words, that it's not necessarily actually underserving).

Funny, one of you sees it from the perspective of someone who thinks "to those" is other people not themselves and the other does the opposite.

I think we're talking past each other here :) I wasn't speaking of whether it was a good or a bad thing, I was just pointing out that "woe" meaning "a misfortune or calamity" is the only meaning of the word that applies to the phrase "woe betide", the more common meaning of woe meaning grief or sorrow doesn't apply here because it's an idiom, not two separate words.

I was pointing it out because the first comment I was replying to was clearly unpacking the word "woe" from the phrase "woe betide" and I figured they would appreciate the linguistic footnote.

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