Re:Peek Behind Bret Victor's Lab at YC HARC
by dragonwriter on Friday July 21, 2017 @01:57AM
(#14818374)
> The royal road to clarifying subtle differences in language, however, is etymology
No, it's not. Etymology tells you where a word came from, not what it means (either in denotation or connotation) in current usage. It will often be completely misleading in trying to unpack subtle differences in meaning.
Re:Peek Behind Bret Victor's Lab at YC HARC
by DonHopkins on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:02AM
(#14819064)
How is heterodoxophobia more nuanced than literally meaning being afraid of different opinions?
http://tcpc.blogs.com/musings/2010/05/homodoxuals-and-hetero...
I couldn't disagree more.
The royal road to clarifying subtle differences in language, however, is etymology, and there the difference is plain.
Is it? (to either of those things). In current English usage, 'unorthodox' doesn't mean 'incorrect' and doesn't connote 'incorrect'.
Re:Peek Behind Bret Victor's Lab at YC HARC
by DonHopkins on Friday July 21, 2017 @05:14AM
(#14819102)
Etymology be damned: I'm still trying to figure out if he meant "royal" as in "Royale with Cheese" or "royal" as in "royal pain in the ass".
The royal road to clarifying subtle differences in language, however, is etymology, and there the difference is plain. Hetero = different, dox = opinion, ortho = correct. So the distinction here is something like "diverse opinion" vs. "incorrect opinion", which to me seems clearly meaningful.