[HN Gopher] The "Nonplussed" Problem (2011)
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The "Nonplussed" Problem (2011)
Author : Tomte
Score : 30 points
Date : 2021-01-22 09:57 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.slate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.slate.com)
| spodek wrote:
| It begs the question, irregardless of whether we want to
| maximalize understanding or minimilize confusion.
| tn890 wrote:
| >irregardless
|
| That's not a word, ironically enough.
| kaishiro wrote:
| I believe the entire comment was tongue-cheeked.
| spodek wrote:
| Yes, I was being ironical.
| JohnStrangeII wrote:
| I didn't see it immediately either, it's amazing how good
| my brain auto-corrected "maximalize" and "minimilize"
| without me even noticing.
| jhfdbkofdcho wrote:
| Merriam-Webster raised the hackles of stodgy grammarians last
| week when it affirmed the lexical veracity of "irregardless."
|
| The word's definition, when reading it, would seem to be:
| without without regard.
|
| "Irregardless is included in our dictionary because it has
| been in widespread and near-constant use since 1795," the
| dictionary's staff wrote in a "Words of the Week" roundup on
| Friday. "We do not make the English language, we merely
| record it."
|
| Merriam-Webster defines irregardless as "nonstandard" but
| meaning the same as "regardless." "Many people find
| irregardless to be a nonsensical word, as the ir- prefix
| usually functions to indicates negation; however, in this
| case it appears to function as an intensifier," the
| dictionary writes.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2020/07/07/887649010/regardless-of-
| what-...
| dingaling wrote:
| > "We do not make the English language, we merely record
| it."
|
| Which is an evasion, because they know they are respected
| as an authority on the language and therefore they do
| actually make the language, or at least legitimise mis-use.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| Allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all
| intensive purposes I think you are ALL wrong. In an age where
| false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing
| in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool
| like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking
| something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard
| up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out
| there.
| jasode wrote:
| As fyi... the thread's article is about a _change in meaning_
| for words that people know how to spell.
|
| Your famous paragraph is more about "mishearing" words.
| Mondegreens:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen
| anotherhue wrote:
| There was a fine article about how to properly deprecate an API
| yesterday, so perhaps the same guidance applies?
|
| Track usage, set deprecation headers (air quotes?), update
| documentation (might take a while), etc.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| The solution is avoid ambiguous words. If a word "Means" one
| thing but people use it differently, it is often a poor word
| choice. This means your vocabulary might get a little
| constrained, but it guarantees effective communication.
|
| Nonplussed is a particularly bad word. The rest of their examples
| I think you can figure out based on context.
| hirundo wrote:
| There seems to be a lot of pressure to rename words that comes
| from tribalism. Tribalism redistributes power and words can be
| leveraged distinguish a tribe.
|
| Take for example calling a group of people "guys". Always when I
| was a child, and still usually now, guys referred to both genders
| when speaking to a mixed gender group. But it is empowering to
| the feminist tribe to be distinct, and interpreting guys as a
| kind of insult to females has that effect. It converts a
| statement meant to be neutral into a kind of oppression, by
| giving it a different meaning than the speaker intended. It
| separates a tribe and gives them reason for solidarity and
| sympathy.
|
| That's a lot of mileage from a simple redefinition, and the
| result is positive where the resulting tribalism is a positive
| force. That it is a positive force is obvious to the tribe
| member. So I think this strategy will be a permanent feature of
| language evolution.
| atreyu wrote:
| If you are addressing a mixed gender group and say "Can all the
| guys please raise their hand?" what do you think will happen?
|
| I don't think this word really refers to both sexes as strongly
| as you might think.
| umanwizard wrote:
| "Guys" (a plural noun) is gendered. "You guys" (a pronoun)
| isn't. It's that simple.
| automatoney wrote:
| There's a pretty strong argument that guys isn't a fully gender
| neutral term. For example, I think most people would read "I
| have dated a lot of guys" as meaning "men". Or perhaps take for
| example the title of the 1950 musical "Guys and Dolls". It
| seems that "guys" is just undergoing the same treatment that
| has largely happened with "men"; certainly there are people who
| would argue that "all men are created equal" does in fact
| include women, but it seems like saying "women are a kind of
| man" reinforces the assumption that male is the default. Would
| people be as charitable if I were to state "all women are
| created equal"? That "men are a kind of women"?
|
| Also the fields which concern these issues are sociolinguistics
| and the sociology of language, for anyone who is curious.
| mjburgess wrote:
| words aren't uni-semantic, they are poly-semantic.
|
| "Guys" as said in one context resolves to the meaning
| "people". In another, "men".
|
| It is pretty much always clear when a speaker means one or
| the other.
|
| As with, eg., "bank". No banker is complaining about the
| "collapsing banks" of a river.
|
| It is pretty clearly an opportunistic misreading of "guys" to
| accuse a speaker of some how implying "men", or even "men" as
| a plausible implication.
|
| It is only in the eye of the "feminist of language" do words
| fail to have contextual meanings; and it is this eye we
| should be suspicious of, rather than any possible double
| meaning.
| automatoney wrote:
| You are completely correct that words have contextual
| meaning. Is part of that context perhaps historical or
| sociological? Why is it that male words also serve as our
| generics? Is there a history there worth examining?
| Downthread someone has linked a few articles about the
| topic, but I would encourage you to read Douglas
| Hofstadter's satirical essay, A Person Paper on Purity in
| Language, in order to get a better understanding of the
| feminist perspective. http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs6
| 55/readings/purity.html
| elliekelly wrote:
| > It is only in the eye of the "feminist of language" do
| words fail to have contextual meanings;
|
| I don't disagree with your conclusion (though I'm not sure
| I _agree_ with it either) but this is a dubious claim. This
| phenomenon is not unique to feminism. See, e.g. the
| singular "they" which many people in recent years claim to
| be entirely unable to understand.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Copy-and-pasting a comment I left elsewhere:
|
| > "Guys" (a plural noun) is gendered. "You guys" (a pronoun)
| isn't. It's that simple.
| CPLX wrote:
| I mean, the etymology of the word women itself has this
| attribute, as a contraction of the concept of "the type of
| man who has a womb" so the whole thing is a bit complicated.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I didn't think that was it. Woman means "ones spouse", used
| to be used by anybody? Or do I have that wrong.
|
| 'Man' still means in some languages what "one" means in
| English in the sense of "one's friends are important". A
| person. Not a male.
|
| But it isn't complicated. Today in English 'man' means a
| male. All the obfuscation using etymology and history are
| meaningless to a modern young person who knows what they're
| saying and what they're hearing.
| guerrilla wrote:
| From Middle English woman, from earlier wimman, wifman.
| The Middle English forms are from Old English wiman,
| wimman, from wifmann m ("woman; female servant",
| literally "female person"), a compound of wif ("woman",
| whence English wife) + mann ("person", whence English
| man). For details on the pronunciation and spelling
| history, see the usage notes below.
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/woman#Etymology
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| It fooled me I guess. Since 'wif' is gender-neutral I
| thought it meant 'partner'. Sometimes it's used that way
| (in old writing) but not often.
| CPLX wrote:
| I stand corrected.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I think you might find it interesting to look at
| counterarguments to that as it's been addressed quite a bit.
| There's this sometimes cited intro [1] but I think [2] is a lot
| better with a literature review and history. Then there's
| Douglas Hofstadter's famous "You've Come a Long Way, Guys!"
| which you can probably find using sci-hub or something.
|
| 1. https://ovop.pw/whysexistlanguagematters.pdf
|
| 2. https://cogsci.indiana.edu/pub/KerryBodine-CmonGuys.pdf
| skohan wrote:
| I understand these arguments, but I can't help thinking that
| the use of the term "guys" is really a non-issue. As someone
| who's been living as an expat for the past 6 years, I speak 3
| languages decently and another one poorly. If there is
| anything this has convinced me of, it's that languages in
| general don't make a lot of sense, and the meaning of words
| is purely defined by how they are used.
|
| By that definition, "guys", when used to refer to a group of
| people, has always been a genderless term. In fact, growing
| up in a progressive town in the midwest, if I heard someone
| use the term "y'all" instead of "you guys", it would signal
| to me that they might not be that good on gender issues (due
| to an unjustified stereotype we had about southern people).
|
| I think you can pick it apart, and find complex logical
| reasons why "guys" might be gendered in certain
| circumstances, but I think in 99% of cases when it's used,
| people are able to understand with complete clarity whether
| it's a gendered or genderless usage of the term.
|
| And also I don't think it's going anywhere, because it's an
| incredibly useful term which has the right level of
| generality and casualness for a great many situations.
| guerrilla wrote:
| If you read the linked papers then you'll see that the
| argument isn't whether it can be genderless. That's not
| disputed since it's used that way effectively. It's about
| what the word evokes regardless of which meaning is meant
| and whether or not that is harmful to women. Connotation
| vs. denotation and the real world effects of the former.
| skohan wrote:
| Yes and my argument would be that in 99% of cases where
| this is used in the real world in a genderless context,
| there is no gendered evocation or connotation with the
| word. It simply means a group of people, and there is no
| harmful effect of using this term.
|
| I believe you have to dig really deep and go through some
| mental gymnastics to find evidence of harm here. I don't
| fault the authors of these papers for exploring the
| potential issues with the term, but I believe this is a
| case where the academic reading is out of step with the
| reality of the situation.
| [deleted]
| mc32 wrote:
| Women use the word guys when addressing a group of men and
| women as much as men do.
|
| It's a generational thing but even older women now use the word
| for addressing mixed groups.
|
| Conversely, there seems to be an aversion from actor/actress in
| some circles whereas before it was observed more.
|
| With regard to presently and momentarily, I prefer the more
| modern meanings. Disinterested: I'm dismayed it's trending
| toward a confusing new meaning and hope I'm not misunderstood
| by the new meaning.
|
| Sometimes prescriptivism works to keep things uniform, but
| there's only so much you can hold back the tide.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think I mostly avoid these words because of the ambiguity -- I
| know I know what they mean, but I also know that other people use
| them for other things, so as a result, they can't be used.
| "decimate" is a word I'd like to use on occasion, but I know that
| the real meaning and the common meaning are pretty much
| opposites. Best to avoid.
|
| A trend I've noticed is that people take longer words that sound
| like shorter words, and start using them to "sound smart".
| Consider "utilization" and "usage", which are just synonyms for
| "use". Start throwing around three letter words when you could
| use an eleven letter word and people will think you're dumb.
|
| I still call a pushbutton switch "momentary on", though. I hope
| people don't think that means that the circuit turns on after a
| delay.
| jdashg wrote:
| You know what "decimate" _meant_ , but what it _means in modern
| English_ is different. It 's less the "real" meaning than the
| "original" meaning, but age doesn't make it more correct.
| "axing a question" is over a thousand years old, but its
| acceptability depends on your audience, not any inherent
| realness of meaning.
|
| The people who collectively decided what words mean centuries
| ago were not special. We are them, just with smartphones.
| perl4ever wrote:
| It _is_ objectively bad when not-very-literate people guess
| that a rarer word means the same as a more familiar word that
| it sounds a bit like and drown out the people who made a
| distinction.
|
| That's because it is destroying useful tools for no gain. The
| word used to mean X, not Y, whereas now it's just a
| pretentious version of Y.
|
| "Decimate" may not be a terribly significant word to
| use/lose, but that's not a refutation of the pattern of loss
| that's degrading the language. Claiming it's just an
| arbitrary point of view is not correct.
|
| On the other hand, a lot of people don't grasp that when you
| Google a word, you likely do not find _all_ the definitions
| that are in a decent dictionary, so it seems like the
| misinformation is fairly balanced between ignoring
| distinctions and making up distinctions /restrictions that
| didn't exist in the first place.
| nabla9 wrote:
| The problem comes when words describe an idea or concept.
| Usually, words lose specificity and become more generic.
|
| Consider the word _racist_ , "the belief that groups of humans
| possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical
| appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one
| race over another." Many people who say "I'm not a racist" are
| correct. They can be xenophobes and/or bigots.
|
| There is no specific English word to describe bona fide racists
| from David Duke to Charles Murray, without including xenophobes,
| bigots, and people with strong unconscious prejudge.
| wilshire_nc wrote:
| There's no word to describe David Duke & Charles Murray without
| including xenophobes and bigots, because David Duke & Charles
| Murray are xenophobes and bigots.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Of course there can be words to describe subsets of larger
| groups.
|
| They're also people; is there no word to describe them
| without including all people?
| nabla9 wrote:
| There is no word to describe Jack Daniel's, and Laphroaig
| without including all other alcoholic drinks because Jack
| Daniel's, and Laphroaig are alcoholic drinks.
| jasperry wrote:
| I agree, it's a big loss to discourse when a useful word loses
| its specificity and there's nothing else to take its place.
| That's why I am one of those who would to fight to keep the
| "correct" meaning of "disinterested".
|
| I think it's important to distinguish between words like that
| and other entries in the article's list that are just trite
| figures of speech, and it won't hurt anyone if they shift
| meanings or even fall out of use altogether.
| watwut wrote:
| > bona fide racists from David Duke to Charles Murray, without
| including xenophobes, bigots, and people with strong
| unconscious prejudge.
|
| Because the primary thing that diatinguishes them is eloquence
| when they talk and iq. The rest is largely the same.
| Strang wrote:
| "racists from David Duke to Charles Murray"
|
| I disagree that the absence of a word to link these two
| ideologically is a fault of the English language.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| It would be interesting to see whether more people would engage a
| switch _for a moment_ or _in a moment,_ given the instruction to
| do so _momentarily,_ if they were also recently educated about
| the definition of a _momentary_ switch.
|
| Unfortunately, there would be no way to analyze the results, as
| I'm certain that most people would engage it in such a way as to
| apply both definitions even if they didn't know two existed.
| xyzelement wrote:
| There's a very simple metric I use for this - do people
| understand what I mean or does language choice confuse them?
|
| Once you adopt this metric, your whole life is better. You don't
| worry about misusing words, you stop using acronyms from your
| last job when you interview, you stop making that joke to your
| wife that she never gets and is instead annoyed, etc.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Mirror: https://archive.is/p8pyL
| GNU_James wrote:
| I don't need politics in my IT.
| paulsutter wrote:
| Summary:
|
| > I have a somewhat arbitrary metric... the proportion of the
| first 20 hits on a Google News search reflecting a word's old
| meaning
|
| Even more interesting then to compare the Bing ranking to the
| Google ranking for any ... postmodern language changes, to
| confirm or disprove the rumor that Google results are 20% more
| ideological
| cheph wrote:
| Why should we try and change a word's meaning?
|
| EDIT: Original title was: "How long should we cling to a word's
| original meaning? (2011)"
| eplanit wrote:
| Languages experience entropy, too.
| cheph wrote:
| Okay.
| [deleted]
| syncsynchalt wrote:
| There's confusion when a word means one thing to one set of
| people, and the opposite to the other set of people. When
| someone says they're "nonplussed", what exactly are they
| saying?
|
| The choices are to either agree more broadly to a single
| meaning ("change the meaning" to half of the people), or find
| another less ambiguous word.
| soneca wrote:
| There is no "we" trying to change. Individual people just start
| doing it, then it catches on, and then the meaning has already
| changed for a lot of people.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| It can even happen at the level of subculture-specific words
| (possibly NSFW depending on your W):
| https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Yiff
| cheph wrote:
| Title was changed, it was: "How long should we cling to a
| word's original meaning? (2011)" - clearly containing the
| word "we", thus implying a "we".
| salex89 wrote:
| Yet decades after it got a new meaning, we can't use "master"
| as a branch name because it had a different meaning in 1800.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Sure you can and plenty of people still do.
| watwut wrote:
| I do use master for branches. I use also master and slave.
|
| But, outside of tech, the meaning of slave did not changed
| one big. I did not seen "master" anywhere except master
| slave relationship (whether history or bdsm).
|
| So I find theory that calling these two master and slave is
| unrelated to historical slavery implausible. People who use
| it first time being inspired by that seems most plausible
| origin of that name.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| The etymology of "master" goes back at least to the Latin
| "magister" meaning "teacher", and is used in a multitude
| of contexts where one person is recognized as having some
| kind of revered knowledge or authority about some topic.
|
| While I don't agree with the position that the word
| "slave" be expunged from tech for some putative role in
| trivializing historical slavery either, at least the
| argument does have a plausible premise. The anti "master"
| crowd though is laughably ignorant of language.
| JohnStrangeII wrote:
| Well, if you start arguing this way, then you can also go
| all the way back and muse about what the word meant in
| Proto-Indoeuropean.
|
| It's still obvious that the modern use of the
| master/slave combo comes from centuries of slavery, not
| from any prior meanings. As OP said, that can be shown by
| studying their meanings outside the technical context.
| The original meaning was retained in Academia but merely
| as jargon. Magister artium is a "master degree." There is
| no "slave degree", though. There is also "mastery",
| master/apprentice, and so on.
|
| In other words, the offensive component of the combo is
| "slave", not "master." You can safely continue to use the
| master/apprentice combo.
| loceng wrote:
| No, you can still and should still use master and slave in
| the non-human slave contexts because that's how you hold
| the line against irrationality - and not coddle that
| unreasonable crowd.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| To some those words have a hurtful meaning. You may
| consider them irrational, but they would consider you
| irrational.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| I question the amount of people who find "master" in
| computing truly hurtful. The activist demographic pushing
| to change the terminology is exceedingly small, and I
| simply don't see much authentic pressure from the masses
| behind it, unlike in the case of other terms that are now
| eschewed.
|
| Also, once one is aware of etymology as a science,
| changing "master" in this context does seem irrational:
| in very many languages the general word for "mister, sir"
| and the word used for "master to a slave" are identical,
| and are we to change all these terms of address, too?
| loceng wrote:
| That's an emotional reaction and not grounded in logic
| because they're not differentiating the contexts.
| Differentiation, boundaries and context with words and
| language, is something then they need to learn - and if
| you coddle them, they're not going to learn that - so
| you're actually doing a disservice to them and society.
|
| If a child is having a temper tantrum because you won't
| let them taste the bleach, you don't give in to let them
| taste the bleach.
|
| And re: they will consider my response irrational - I
| just explained it with logic, and there is truth and
| logic - you don't fold to that behaviour just because
| someone's emotional maturity is underdeveloped or blocked
| - likely from coddling and adults in their life not being
| integral to hold boundaries for certain types of
| thinking/behaviour; this has lead to what's considered a
| neoliberal group - the same extreme exists on the
| conservative side as well, though it manifests
| differently.
| eplanit wrote:
| Maybe they're too fragile.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| I really like Mental Outlaw's take on this push against
| "offensive" language and toward "inclusive" language:
| https://youtu.be/tx2v0Y9Ci7I
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