News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Comments by a developer inside the Windows Media Player s... by leephillips on Saturday September 26, 2020 @10:17PM (#24603681)
Try, say, Google ngram. Would you say that, for example, “disharmonious” is a rare word? Graph them together. Pulchritude is not even moderately rare.
Re:Comments by a developer inside the Windows Media Player s... by grumple on Saturday September 26, 2020 @10:25PM (#24603723)
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here; pulchritude twice as rare as disharmonious, which is relatively rare. It’s an order of magnitude rarer than effervescent, as an example, which is a word I would consider uncommon but in most people’s vocabularies. And given how much more common pulchritude is - surely physical beauty is one of the most common subjects in any language - while disharmony and effervescence are more complex and rarer in practice, I think it speaks to how little the word is used. Its synonym, beauty, is used 2000x as often.
Re:Comments by a developer inside the Windows Media Player s... by leephillips on Saturday September 26, 2020 @10:37PM (#24603766)
Except that pulchritude beats disharmonious for over a hundred years. And even now, it’s half as common as disharmonious, which is a commonplace word. But if you think that a word like “disharmonious” is in any sense rare, then I don’t think I can convince you with data.
Re:Comments by a developer inside the Windows Media Player s... by lukeschlather on Sunday September 27, 2020 @12:22AM (#24604208)
When compared to "harmony" usage of the other words is basically zero. Harmony is a common word, and it is the root which makes "disharmonious" easy to understand despite its extreme rarity.

Even "disharmony" is far more common than "disharmonious."

Re:Comments by a developer inside the Windows Media Player s... by zhangeru on Sunday September 27, 2020 @11:47AM (#24607501)
Disharmonious just seems common because it sounds similar to a word we're familiar with. Most times I can recall, a writer would craft a sentence using the word 'disharmony' instead, which is many times more common than either. What led you to pick disharmonious as a comparison point, anyway?
Re:Comments by a developer inside the Windows Media Player s... by dorkwood on Monday September 28, 2020 @02:02PM (#24619489)
I agree. I think if you're going to use "disharmonious" as your benchmark, you should be comparing it with "pulchritudinous" instead.
Re:Comments by a developer inside the Windows Media Player s... by harrygeez on Sunday September 27, 2020 @01:16AM (#24604392)
Probably learned it while prepping for their SATs