101–110 of 142 posts
I suspect this unawareness of language use is universal. When I lived in the UK in the early 90's, people would discuss the weather in celcius when it was cold and fahrenheit when it was warm with seemingly no idea that they'd switched.
It's a good time as any to remind everyone that The Jerk is still one of the funniest movies ever made. It could never be made today, and I suggest you pick up a copy if you've never seen it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like to use the example of being a passenger in a car. • Position is where you are at any moment. If you're not moving, your position doesn't change. • Velocity is how quickly your position changes. If you are doing 30 MPH on a perfectly straight road with no stops and starts, you may not even notice you're moving until you look out the window. • Acceleration is how quickly your velocity changes. It's the force tha…
The next level i.e., rate of change of Jerk is called Jounce. However, I'm afraid I don't know how that would be described in car passenger's terms in your example.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth,_fifth,_and_sixth_deriv...
I always thought it was the third derivative of position
You are a 3rd derivative of position!
Other words with meanings that changed are punk, dumb, and nice. The dictionary meaning didn’t match how people understood them.
Punk: prostitute / catamite -> worthless / degenerate -> confrontational / obnoxious
Nice: silly / foolish -> fussy / fastidious -> pleasant / good
And "nice" is often used sarcastically, so you could see how the common meaning might in future go full circle.
It's a good time as any to remind everyone that The Jerk is still one of the funniest movies ever made. It could never be made today, and I suggest you pick up a copy if you've never seen it.
The evolution of "jerk" makes me also think of "nimrod" and how it referred to the biblical hunter and meant someone with great skills in hunting, until it was used to refer to Elmer Fudd, at which point the meaning changed to mean a complete idiot. https://thehabit.co/nimrod-hectoring-maudlin-eponymns-and-pe...
I thought "nimrod" as an epithet (meaning ~"dummy") came from Nimrod, the Biblical king who ordered the construction of the Tower of Babel (which caused offense to God and thereafter great confusion -- which would have earned him the reputation of being a person who makes bad choices, if your belief system is so aligned).
I wonder if it used to be that people largely weren’t on the same page, and didn’t know it. It’s not like people consult dictionaries to learn what slang means, or even usually ask somebody, and the definitions are related enough that responses usually don’t distinguish them. I’ve noticed it’s not uncommon online that a post’s likes are split between opposing interpretations, like agreeing with its politics vs seeing…
the British slang version of the word "cheers" is a very good example of this. I can tell you for absolute certain that the most people use the word "cheers" to mean "thanks", but if you go online and look up the definition, you will be told it also means goodbye, which it really doesn't, but I think this arises from the fact that it's a bit more relaxed form of thanks, so people frequently say it as thank you at the…
the post is gaslighting his own mom > It’s that some of the folks who used to use it that way don’t remember that they did. When I asked my mom to define the word this week, she used the modern meaning, with no apparent recollection of her former firm conviction that a jerk was a dope, dodo, or dimwit. Did someone Neuralyze my mom, No, they didn't. It's well documented the meaning was already changing in the 70s. "Th…