usage defines language not the other way around

Like it or not, "crypto" now means cryptocurrency, and "cryptography" means cryptography

> usage defines language not the other way around

I say we start referring to cryptocurrencies as "cyber cash" and then abbreviate it to "cyber". If anyone should suffer from appropriated terminology at the hands of blockchainiacs, it ought to be the insufferable sales staff at security industry conferences.

But "cyber" already means cybersex? I mean, that's what I think of when I hear Cyber Monday, Cyber Security, etc.

It's also context-sensitive. If you are talking about investing and mention crypto, it's pretty obviously implying cryptocurrencies.

Linguistically they can both define it as they please really. Just like how a joint can be anatomical, a place, or a drug delivery mechanism.

Really it is surprising that there isn't more contention over abbreviations.

"usage defines language"

Yeah that's exactly why GP is asking to change the usage.

I literally died reading this

    Usage defines language not the other way around

That depends on whether you take a prescriptive or descriptive approach.

And the prescriptivist approach is dumb, because no one has the authority to prescribe English usage. We don’t have an Academie française, and even English dictionaries explicitly disavow any intent to mandate correct usage and state that they are only cataloging real world speech.

Why? "cryptos" only refers to cryptocurrencies since nobody says cryptographies.

There are a lot of communities, from Reddit's /r/crypto to Freenode's ##crypto channel, which use the "crypto" shorthand for "cryptography" have been around for decades and in the past couple of years have been inundated with cryptocurrency obsession.

TL;DR - The main goal is: "Get off our lawn."

Yeah, I get that. But I mean the plural version should be exclusive to cryptocurrencies since I've never seen the plural form of cryptography in use. It seems it's fairly unambiguous in that "cryptos" as a plural term has never been used to refer to cryptography(ies).