Comment on Attaching one's name to an astronomical survey likely buys immortality beyond the heat-death of the Earth

<- View Parent
JohnnyCanuck@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Communication is Paramount

Yeah, so you shouldn’t use a well-established term like “heat death” in your own way just because you feel it’s appropriate. Words have meanings. That’s how we communicate.

If I call you a nincompoop to say you’re really smart, just because I think there’s no clear etymology for the term, so it isn’t “linguistically relevant through uniqueness” (whatever the fuck that means) to say it means you’re foolish, you probably wouldn’t understand that’s what I meant. You might even take it as an insult. So our communication would have broken down through my misuse of a word with a well-established meaning.

source
Sort:hotnewtop