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Re:Do svidaniya, Igor, and thank you for Nginx by funcDropShadow on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @06:10PM (#29987466)
On the contrary, I find etymological explanations often most enlightening. Although, I am fully aware that it might just be an origin of a word or a phrase and not the contemporary meaning. Your argument sounds defeatist to me. To paraphrase it: since the 'actual meaning' alone is not a perfect explanation we should not even try to understand the roots of words and their heritage. Then you can stop understanding the world altogether, because no amount of knowledge will remove all obscurity and contradictions. Yet human knowledge is prospering.
Re:Do svidaniya, Igor, and thank you for Nginx by smarx007 on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @06:52PM (#29987900)
I concur, one can learn a lot about the culture when learning a new language. For example, in Swedish you say hello simply with “hej”. And as you may have guessed, Swedes are not big on introductory formalities even in the business context. On the other hand, German and many other languages have different words for you and You (“du” and “Sie”, pronounced Zie). As one may guess, You do not address unfamiliar people with “du”, there is a process to get to know people to the point when You ask a person if you shall switch to a “first-name basis” (this phrase gives a hint that in English, one uses the last name to address an unfamiliar person instead).

Edit: I was deeply impressed when I saw a photo of one of Einstein’s letters after he migrated to the US. Such a highly accomplished scientist still opened his letters to colleagues with “Sehr geehrter Herr Professor Dr.” (highly esteemed dr. professor, sir). This tells me all I need to know how cultured Einstein was.

Re:Do svidaniya, Igor, and thank you for Nginx by pvg on Tuesday January 18, 2022 @06:40PM (#29987788)
Your paraphrase sounds more like some hypothetical argument you'd like to take engage in, not anything I actually wrote.
Re:Do svidaniya, Igor, and thank you for Nginx by funcDropShadow on Thursday January 20, 2022 @10:50AM (#30010372)
Well, if that was not your intention, I am sorry. But it was my honest understanding of what you wrote.