> A classic offender, “utilize” proves that longer is not always better. Why complicate things when “use” works just fine? Everett from Cumby, Texas encourages readers to “Write like you talk,” and added, “Lord, I hope you don’t talk like that.”
Reading an article when suddenly a random personal attack appears.
Unless you are Taylor Swift, it might be time to leave “era” behind. The term’s overuse has made every fleeting moment feel like it demands a historical marker. Leah of Holland, Michigan submits, “Thanks to the name of Taylor Swift’s tour, now there is an ‘era’ for everyone and everything! ‘He’s in his fatherhood era’, ‘She’s in her pottery-making era,’ etc., etc.. It’s overused and tiring.”
> I'd be happy if people on HN would drop "Learnings." It just shows you never learned the word "lessons."
Agreed. Using that "L" word makes one look out-of-touch to me, and I'm disinclined to trust anyone using it.
Same for "performant". There are many ways that something can perform. Are you trying to tell me that something is fast? Why can't you just say that it's fast, and leave it at that?
Though somewhat different than the intent of the list, I'm amazed at the rise of "payed" in place of "paid". I rarely ever saw this error before a couple of years ago and now it's become commonplace, even with people who formerly used paid correctly. I keep expecting to find out it's some recent cultural reference but so far that doesn't appear to be the case.
At least in my local sphere, cringe still has meaning, and I've not heard of the uses in the article although admittedly I live under a bit of a rock. The same goes for era.
I've never heard of skibidi, sorry not sorry, dropped, or IYKYK. But I do agree that "game-changer" is overused.
The article sounds like someone complaining about words that they don't like to hear, but framed in a way to try to get others to stop saying them. It makes me cringe bigly
utilize been on my internal list for about a decade. always has the opposite effect as intended on me. i question if the writer is playing intellectual dress up.
our CEO does it A LOT. a personal emperors new clothes scenario. anyone ever confront upper management and correct language that signals they dont know what theyre talking about?
it seems to me that many small business ceos are emperors in new clothes talking amongst themselves so i rationalize thats just how they speak and expect to be spoken to. confronting not worth risking a knee-jerk-response to an injured ego
'Slop' on the other hand has a bright future ahead. I picked it up just last week, and it is so incredibly apt at what it does. I like it (not the thing it refers to though, i.e., AI generated content and imagery).
My maternal grandmother was a psychologist. I grew up watching pop-psychology become a thing and it drove her crazy. I thank god she passed away before "toxic" became wide spread.
I know this is a joke, but it makes curious. Is "boomer" just used a derogatory term for people older than the speaker now? I ask because the youngest boomers are 60 now and in practice I see the term used against people younger than 60.
Millennial gamers had a collective quarter-life crisis a few years back that manifested itself in form of memes where anyone who whined about modern games being bad was called an out of touch "30 year old boomer". Then as retaliation the whiners started calling anyone who defended modern games as "zoomers", which gave the generation Z a fancy new nickname.
You just imagine some little shit say these words to you in precisely the way that makes your fists itch to make a dent in their face.
That said, if your antagonist evokes the “little shit” vibes without you consciously thinking that, it’s probably only fair that you evoke “boomer” vibes for them. Well.
(It’s also apparent that “boomer” has evolved to mean any old fart.)
It's amusing that the phrase "Don't trust anyone over 30" gained popularity when the Baby Boomers were under 30 but now the sentiment is focused against them (and Gen-X and Millennials).
> the youngest boomers are 60 now and in practice I see the term used against people younger than 60.
In those cases the term isn't being used because the speaker is attempting to accurately identify the age of the person they are referring to. It is name-calling.
I'm looking forward to the day when a group of trolls, ahem, I mean concerned netizens, manages to find the right words and hype to declare 'main' an extremely harmful and hurtful word we should all avoid™.
Fortunately, for the primary git branch (which seems to be called 'main' occasionally) a good neutral alternative already exists: 'master' (like a master copy or a master key). Crisis averted.
Reading an article when suddenly a random personal attack appears.