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

[neilyio]

I'll start. "Orthogonal".

[LinuxBender]

"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

[perilunar → LinuxBender]

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

https://twitter.com/WorldBollard

[krapp]

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

Haven't seen "yon" yet.

[replwoacause]

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

[mtmail]

moat

[fragmede]

confabulate - what LLMs do

[atleastoptimal]

grok

[austin-cheney]

Counter-intuitive

[defrost]

to viscerally delve into psephology .. !an AI

[gadders]

That "nonce" has another meaning relating to cryptography.

[marssaxman → gadders]

What is the non-cryptographic meaning?

[gadders → marssaxman]

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

[lucozade → marssaxman]

Slang for a paedophile

[marssaxman → lucozade]

My goodness. I never would have imagined that!

[tomcam → marssaxman]

English thing, not American

[fuzztester]

"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

[tomcam → fuzztester]

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

[fuzztester → tomcam]

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 → tomcam]

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

[tomcam → giantg2]

Yes. I should have been more precise and described it as a secondary definition (which has become the primary definition in recent years).

[silb]

bifurcate

[tomcam]

TFA (the fucking article)

[zufallsheld → tomcam]

Alternatively the fine article.

[tomcam → zufallsheld]

Hey! I like that much better. Thanks!

[nachox999]

wastimbolo

[piotrke]

'churn' and 'churn rate'

[perilunar]

"heteroscedasticity"

[nicbou]

“Order of magnitude”

[sturza]

enshitification