Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are some words that you learned on Hacker News?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 31 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are some words that you learned on Hacker News?

#21

Post by fuzztester »

tomcam wrote: post #18
fuzztester wrote: post #4

"conflating" is one that I did not know of earlier. "drunk the kool-aid" is another, though a phrase, not a word. "cromulent" is another

Conflate is seldom used correctly on HN. It means combine but now people use it when they mean confuse.

Oh wow, didn't know that, thanks. Yes, I've mainly or only seen used it on HN in the sense of confuse, or mistake one thing or concept for another.

Re: Ask HN: What are some words that you learned on Hacker News?

#28

Post by giantg2 »

tomcam wrote: post #18
fuzztester wrote: post #4

"conflating" is one that I did not know of earlier. "drunk the kool-aid" is another, though a phrase, not a word. "cromulent" is another

Conflate is seldom used correctly on HN. It means combine but now people use it when they mean confuse.

Actually, there are multiple definitions of conflate. One of these does have confuse as a synonym.

Re: Ask HN: What are some words that you learned on Hacker News?

#30

Post by tomcam »

giantg2 wrote: post #28
tomcam wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflate is seldom used correctly on HN. It means combine but now people use it when they mean confuse.

Actually, there are multiple definitions of conflate. One of these does have confuse as a synonym.

Yes. I should have been more precise and described it as a secondary definition (which has become the primary definition in recent years).
Post reply on HN