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

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40147389

by neilyio • 2 years ago

16 29 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'll start. "Orthogonal".

perilunar2• 2 years ago

"heteroscedasticity"

fuzztester2• 2 years ago

"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

tomcam5• 2 years ago

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

fuzztester2• 2 years ago

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.

giantg2• 2 years ago

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

atleastoptimal• 2 years ago

grok

defrost• 2 years ago

to viscerally delve into psephology .. !an AI

gadders2• 2 years ago

That "nonce" has another meaning relating to cryptography.

marssaxman2• 2 years ago

What is the non-cryptographic meaning?

lucozade• 2 years ago

Slang for a paedophile

gadders2• 2 years ago

Second sense here: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/nonce

LinuxBender• 2 years ago

"bollard" [1] - I always called them steel poles with concrete inside, buried in the ground. Someone here corrected me and I learned something. Adding to that I never associated them with the more artistic versions as I assumed those were weaker or just for looks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollard

perilunar2• 2 years ago

Check out the The World Bollard Association™ twitter account for photos and videos of vehicles getting caught up by bollards:

https://twitter.com/WorldBollard

fragmede• 2 years ago

confabulate - what LLMs do

krapp• 2 years ago

Surprised no one has mentioned "thither" as often as dang uses it.

Haven't seen "yon" yet.

tomcam5• 2 years ago

TFA (the fucking article)

zufallsheld• 2 years ago

Alternatively the fine article.

tomcam5• 2 years ago

Hey! I like that much better. Thanks!

sturza• 2 years ago

enshitification

nachox999• 2 years ago

wastimbolo

mtmail• 2 years ago

moat

replwoacause• 2 years ago

“Your pricing is too high” and I learned them in that order too

piotrke• 2 years ago

'churn' and 'churn rate'

nicbou• 2 years ago

“Order of magnitude”

austin-cheney• 2 years ago

Counter-intuitive

silb• 2 years ago

bifurcate

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

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