But when I take a brake, doesn’t that mean I’m stopping work, hitting the brakes?
When I diffuse a situation, doesn’t that mean I’m thinning out the tension or whatever?
People make up whatever reason they need to avoid going to a dictionary to understand what they’re writing.
(It’s break and defuse, in case anyone was wondering. The first doesn’t need explanation, but defuse is because you want to cut the fuse off from the thing that’s going to blow up, the thing being the situation)
This is why we don't have nice things... we rather think that an incorrect statement from a random unknown person on the internet comes from someone lazy or nefarious, that from someone just making a joke.
I think it is funny to think of 'NEWS' as a abbreviation, why else would so many news media print it in capitals.
The way the internet works, people have no chance to know if you're kidding or being serious. It takes one misunderstanding, to turn a distribution of a joke into distribution of misinformation
Sure. However there is a difference between "NEWS is a acroym for something" and much more hurtful and/or political/commercial motivated spread of misinformation.
Any misinformation is imo a problem, no matter if it is intentional, unintentional, hurtful or innocent
Its the practise of misinformation that i find dangerous, no matter what its about. I understand that misinformation can be funny though, but it must clearly show that it is a joke
The notion that the English word news — that is, information about recent events — is the plural of the word new just doesn't sound right, so somebody cooked up the notion that the word is an acronym formed from the initial letters of the four cardinal compass points (north, east, west, and south), supposedly because news is information from all over the land.
Similar folk etymologies include the idea that 'news' derives from an acronym for the phrase "Notable Events, Weather, and Sports": (image from OP here)
This tidbit is also obviously not true, as the concept of "news" was around (and was referred to as such) long before professional sports and reliable weather forecasting became mainstays of that industry (or even existed).
Likewise, the word 'newspaper' is not an acronym formed from the words "North, East, West, South, Past and Present Event Report." A newspaper is so named because it is literally paper on which has been printed information about recent events (i.e., 'news').
It's not surprising that the real explanation sounds a bit odd to us, because new is an adjective and not a noun, so how could it have a plural form? The answer is that although adjectives don't generally have plurals in English, they do in other languages. In some Romance languages, for example, adjectives change to agree in number with the nouns they modify. In Spanish a white house is a casa blanca, but white houses are casas blancas. Likewise, in French a tall woman is a grande femme, but tall women are grandes femmes. When nouveau, the French word for new, modifies a plural (feminine) noun, it becomes nouvelles, which is also the French word for news.
Why would I do extra research to prove my professor wrong instead of just listening to what they said for the test? Idk you're right but also assuming a lot lmfao
Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy.
Gosh, I dunno. Couldn’t have anything to do with the subject matter, maybe?
It's also the reporting of facts and the fact is that I was told in school that is where it came from, which is what I originally said. I didn't scour book and the internet over every claim every teacher said. My bad. But yes they still taught research? What a crazy thing to ask
It's also about accepting new information when you're wrong. Which I have done. But you didn't have to come at it the way you did? You can inform someone they are wrong without being hostile about it. How hard is it to say "hey actually that is incorrect" and then post snopes without being a dick?That's reddit behavior.
Edit: thought I was replying to person who corrected me
It’s ok. I was being a bit of a dick. Though I was aiming for a more sarcastic/funny(?) dick than a pedantic one. I get you though.Assuming you are of the age before the internet, we were taught long ago that authority figures were right and kids/students were wrong, and we grew into this accepting things at face value culture. Before the internet, we kind of had to as we had very little available to us (as kids) to counter what we were told.
Anyway, that aside, back to the sarcastic dick thing, I was mostly poking at journalism as a whole. Not specifically you.
Sorry I also replied to that when I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, so I wasn't fully there. Not coherent enough to pick up on any sarcasm for sure.
But it was during the internet but more in the advice animals dumb meme era. But I mainly majored in that to get my foot in the door other places. You'd be surprised, every class in every degree was reinforcing old school ethics and hammering the 24 hour networks. It was all about how to report facts without bias. Easy to make fun of now bc journalism kneels to capital but it was nothing to mock. Except my history of mass media professor I guess.
But I wasn't cut out for office work either way so now I'm a truck driver lmfao
Wait you're sticking with that it actually happened not that you were joking? What f-tier journalism school did you go to? And they tested on the origin of the world news, already an insane thing to do to in a journalistic qualification, AND they expected a totally absurd and obviously false answer?
I'm not gonna lie, yeah I regurgitated something they taught in an undergrad mass media history class over a decade ago. It was incorrect info and I get that.
Again, someone could have just plainly been like "yo dude that's not right" and I would have been like "oh okay thank you" instead of everyone being like "JOURNALISM SCHOOL LMFAO fuck this guy"
I was thinking that chest counted as middle so thus didn't count here? But yeah then South kinda didn't fit in at all... this seems to be not the most well-thought-out comment I've made:-P.
I take issue with sports being in headline news practically every day, or multiple days per week at least.
I have nothing against people enjoying sports, but it's a hobby like any other, which I think is unreasonably thrust upon everyone else.
Where is the eSports news, or competitive dancing, woodworking news, or as I'm sure we can all agree on Lemmy, what about my old electronic gadget of the week news?
When I had The Guardian app, it was quite annoying that sports was lumped in with the push notifications for actual news.
I'm just saying sports news ought to be opt-in like any other hobby.
I agree. I can't stand that every restaurant or bar has to have a TV or 20 that are all tuned to talking heads blowing hot air over what sports guy #876,914 did last night, or what sports guy #1,456,888 will do tomorrow night.
Even when it's live sports, the broadcast is still more commercials than game, every square inch of the playing area is plastered with ads, plus the ads that are on the overlay, plus this instant replay is brought to you by A1 Hemorrhoid cream, from the Mega-Car Savings Plus Center, at beautiful Jack the Ambulance Chaser Stadium: "When you drive drunk, call Jack to blame on the innocent™!"
Oh but haven't you heard? It's vital to your career and social life that you pick a sportsball team. Else what ever will you answer when someone asks 😯???
I should specify, it's in the context of tv news and other headline notifications in news apps, or front page.
I don't read print newspapers, and have nothing against sports being covered in any news org, as long as it's not put front and centre where you can't escape it haha
Also weather wasn't part of news (as in published news) at first, unless they were reporting what it was currently doing right now, because it predated forecasting by about 300 years.
When newspapers first started to be published they weren't printed daily it was just whenever they felt like they had enough news. And it took days for them to create the paper and for them to print all of the copies so even very vague estimates of the weather would have been out of date by the time they were actually selling them.
news (n.)
late 14c., "new things," plural of new (n.) "new thing" (see new (adj.)); after French nouvelles, which was used in Bible translations to render Medieval Latin nova (neuter plural) "news," literally "new things."
The English word was construed as singular at least from the 1560s, but it sometimes still was regarded as plural 17c.-19c. The odd and doubtful construction probably accounts for the absurd folk-etymology (attested by 1640 but originally, and in 18c. usually, in jest-books) that claims it to be an abbreviation of north east south west, as though "information from all quarters of the compass."
The meaning "tidings, intelligence of something that has lately taken place" is from early 15c. The meaning "radio or television program presenting current events" is from 1923. Bad news in the extended sense of "unpleasant person or situation" is from 1926. Expression no news, good news can be traced to 1640s. Expression news to me "something I did not know" is from 1889.
Thank you! Their reply was funny, but it would have been helpful to have at least the basic definition there too if they're going to respond to that person lol
I'm surprised. Merriam-Webster is usually the Urban Dictionary of print dictionaries. I'd have more expected them to change their definition because "muh common usage."
I once worked with a guy from Missouri who said, "you know that little stub that sticks down into Arkansas? If we cut that off and gave it to Arkansas, it'd raise the average IQ of both states by 10 points."
Always thought it was funny, but never knew if he was joking.
I once read an article praising the 1913 edition of the Webster's dictionary and I have been using it ever since (in the form of GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English). That with etymonline makes the reading experience quite pleasant.
also common usage is what defines words; that has nothing to do with MW. that's how language works. i can't believe there are still prescriptionists in this century.
The movie dramatisation of the triangle factory showed the awful conditions. Trying to make everyone clock out while the building was burning down around them. Madness.
112 replies
This is why we dont have cool things any more... we make up our own knowledge just because it seems to fit
That's what I thought when I was a kid but I was told I was wrong!
Acronyms didn't become popular until fairly recently, so if the word is at least a century old, odds are that it isn't an acronym.
But when I take a brake, doesn’t that mean I’m stopping work, hitting the brakes?
When I diffuse a situation, doesn’t that mean I’m thinning out the tension or whatever?
People make up whatever reason they need to avoid going to a dictionary to understand what they’re writing.
(It’s break and defuse, in case anyone was wondering. The first doesn’t need explanation, but defuse is because you want to cut the fuse off from the thing that’s going to blow up, the thing being the situation)
People make mistakes. Thems the brakes.
People are fucking illiterate, that's what they are.
news (n.) late 14c., "new things," plural of new (n.) "new thing" (see new (adj.)); after French nouvelles, which was used in Bible translations to render Medieval Latin nova (neuter plural) "news," literally "new things."
This is why we don't have nice things... we rather think that an incorrect statement from a random unknown person on the internet comes from someone lazy or nefarious, that from someone just making a joke.
I think it is funny to think of 'NEWS' as a abbreviation, why else would so many news media print it in capitals.
The way the internet works, people have no chance to know if you're kidding or being serious. It takes one misunderstanding, to turn a distribution of a joke into distribution of misinformation
Sure. However there is a difference between "NEWS is a acroym for something" and much more hurtful and/or political/commercial motivated spread of misinformation.
Any misinformation is imo a problem, no matter if it is intentional, unintentional, hurtful or innocent
Its the practise of misinformation that i find dangerous, no matter what its about. I understand that misinformation can be funny though, but it must clearly show that it is a joke
NORTH EAST WEST SOUTH
At least that's what they taught us in journalism school
Actually it's Never Eat While Shitting
Oops. Should I not have done that? I mean if anyone had told me that sort of thing is frowned upon I never would've...
They're joking. You should actually always eat while shitting and shit while eating. No exceptions.
That's what the nice shelf is for on the toilet
My housemate at university used to eat a bowl of cereal while on the toilet in the morning. We referred to it as "the circle of life".
I'd be mad as fuck lmao. You wanna talk about someone pissing in your cheerios, I hope you eat fast.
Beats me
Never eat skunks weiners, actually.
Not Everyone Wins Sayings
Have it your way. Never Eat Weiners of Skunks
First off:
THIS IS THE THE SAME POST CITED IN THE SNOPES ARTICLE DEBUNKING IT
I guess they didn't also teach research in "journalism school"?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/news-etymology/
Origin
Some explanations are just too simple to accept:
The notion that the English word news — that is, information about recent events — is the plural of the word new just doesn't sound right, so somebody cooked up the notion that the word is an acronym formed from the initial letters of the four cardinal compass points (north, east, west, and south), supposedly because news is information from all over the land.
Similar folk etymologies include the idea that 'news' derives from an acronym for the phrase "Notable Events, Weather, and Sports": (image from OP here)
This tidbit is also obviously not true, as the concept of "news" was around (and was referred to as such) long before professional sports and reliable weather forecasting became mainstays of that industry (or even existed).
Likewise, the word 'newspaper' is not an acronym formed from the words "North, East, West, South, Past and Present Event Report." A newspaper is so named because it is literally paper on which has been printed information about recent events (i.e., 'news').
It's not surprising that the real explanation sounds a bit odd to us, because new is an adjective and not a noun, so how could it have a plural form? The answer is that although adjectives don't generally have plurals in English, they do in other languages. In some Romance languages, for example, adjectives change to agree in number with the nouns they modify. In Spanish a white house is a casa blanca, but white houses are casas blancas. Likewise, in French a tall woman is a grande femme, but tall women are grandes femmes. When nouveau, the French word for new, modifies a plural (feminine) noun, it becomes nouvelles, which is also the French word for news.
Not so strange after all.
Why would I do extra research to prove my professor wrong instead of just listening to what they said for the test? Idk you're right but also assuming a lot lmfao
Gosh, I dunno. Couldn’t have anything to do with the subject matter, maybe?
It's also the reporting of facts and the fact is that I was told in school that is where it came from, which is what I originally said. I didn't scour book and the internet over every claim every teacher said. My bad. But yes they still taught research? What a crazy thing to ask
It's also about accepting new information when you're wrong. Which I have done. But you didn't have to come at it the way you did? You can inform someone they are wrong without being hostile about it. How hard is it to say "hey actually that is incorrect" and then post snopes without being a dick?That's reddit behavior.
Edit: thought I was replying to person who corrected me
It’s ok. I was being a bit of a dick. Though I was aiming for a more sarcastic/funny(?) dick than a pedantic one. I get you though.Assuming you are of the age before the internet, we were taught long ago that authority figures were right and kids/students were wrong, and we grew into this accepting things at face value culture. Before the internet, we kind of had to as we had very little available to us (as kids) to counter what we were told.
Anyway, that aside, back to the sarcastic dick thing, I was mostly poking at journalism as a whole. Not specifically you.
But yeah, it’s all good.
Sorry I also replied to that when I woke up in the middle of the night to pee, so I wasn't fully there. Not coherent enough to pick up on any sarcasm for sure.
But it was during the internet but more in the advice animals dumb meme era. But I mainly majored in that to get my foot in the door other places. You'd be surprised, every class in every degree was reinforcing old school ethics and hammering the 24 hour networks. It was all about how to report facts without bias. Easy to make fun of now bc journalism kneels to capital but it was nothing to mock. Except my history of mass media professor I guess.
But I wasn't cut out for office work either way so now I'm a truck driver lmfao
Wait you're sticking with that it actually happened not that you were joking? What f-tier journalism school did you go to? And they tested on the origin of the world news, already an insane thing to do to in a journalistic qualification, AND they expected a totally absurd and obviously false answer?
Were you training to work at fox?
I'm not gonna lie, yeah I regurgitated something they taught in an undergrad mass media history class over a decade ago. It was incorrect info and I get that.
Again, someone could have just plainly been like "yo dude that's not right" and I would have been like "oh okay thank you" instead of everyone being like "JOURNALISM SCHOOL LMFAO fuck this guy"
That doesn’t even make sense, who would refer to cardinal directions in that order?
The Catholic Church says hi.:-P
Isn’t it forehead chest, shoulder shoulder? So NSEW?
I was thinking that chest counted as middle so thus didn't count here? But yeah then South kinda didn't fit in at all... this seems to be not the most well-thought-out comment I've made:-P.
The Catholic Church says hi ;-P
ah yes, the forehead, that points north.
No, no, look. I've told you. It's spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch
I think they do north south east west.
Oh. Then it makes sense that South is the final objective.
Not to be confused with the final solution, which was more Protestant.
Fun fact they were going to name compasses NEWS but the name was already taken
That's news to me!
all in the same house
Dammit. Now I need to listen to some Escape Club
Lol, imagine if "sports" was part of the origin story of news as a concept.
I take issue with sports being in headline news practically every day, or multiple days per week at least.
I have nothing against people enjoying sports, but it's a hobby like any other, which I think is unreasonably thrust upon everyone else.
Where is the eSports news, or competitive dancing, woodworking news, or as I'm sure we can all agree on Lemmy, what about my old electronic gadget of the week news?
When I had The Guardian app, it was quite annoying that sports was lumped in with the push notifications for actual news.
I'm just saying sports news ought to be opt-in like any other hobby.
I agree. I can't stand that every restaurant or bar has to have a TV or 20 that are all tuned to talking heads blowing hot air over what sports guy #876,914 did last night, or what sports guy #1,456,888 will do tomorrow night.
Even when it's live sports, the broadcast is still more commercials than game, every square inch of the playing area is plastered with ads, plus the ads that are on the overlay, plus this instant replay is brought to you by A1 Hemorrhoid cream, from the Mega-Car Savings Plus Center, at beautiful Jack the Ambulance Chaser Stadium: "When you drive drunk, call Jack to blame on the innocent™!"
Oh but haven't you heard? It's vital to your career and social life that you pick a sportsball team. Else what ever will you answer when someone asks 😯???
"Did you see that ludicrous display last night?"
what were they thinking??????
How many innings are in a football game?
I'm gonna sound like an asshole, but that stuff isn't in there because the people reading newspapers don't care about those things
I should specify, it's in the context of tv news and other headline notifications in news apps, or front page.
I don't read print newspapers, and have nothing against sports being covered in any news org, as long as it's not put front and centre where you can't escape it haha
In Australia they've started doing horoscopes as part of the evening news. I'm not joking.
Lol, how would they even fit that in? What channel?
Byzantine politics did have political parties and professional sports teams as literally the same thing, so it's not completely insane as a concept.
Also weather wasn't part of news (as in published news) at first, unless they were reporting what it was currently doing right now, because it predated forecasting by about 300 years.
Oh now, we've been predicting the weather far longer than you imagine. We just haven't been very good at it until fairly recently.
When newspapers first started to be published they weren't printed daily it was just whenever they felt like they had enough news. And it took days for them to create the paper and for them to print all of the copies so even very vague estimates of the weather would have been out of date by the time they were actually selling them.
From the Etymonline website:
news (n.) late 14c., "new things," plural of new (n.) "new thing" (see new (adj.)); after French nouvelles, which was used in Bible translations to render Medieval Latin nova (neuter plural) "news," literally "new things."
The English word was construed as singular at least from the 1560s, but it sometimes still was regarded as plural 17c.-19c. The odd and doubtful construction probably accounts for the absurd folk-etymology (attested by 1640 but originally, and in 18c. usually, in jest-books) that claims it to be an abbreviation of north east south west, as though "information from all quarters of the compass."
The meaning "tidings, intelligence of something that has lately taken place" is from early 15c. The meaning "radio or television program presenting current events" is from 1923. Bad news in the extended sense of "unpleasant person or situation" is from 1926. Expression no news, good news can be traced to 1640s. Expression news to me "something I did not know" is from 1889.
Thank you! Their reply was funny, but it would have been helpful to have at least the basic definition there too if they're going to respond to that person lol
I always assumed it was news as plural. Here's a list of new's. This is new, that is new.
I'm pretty sure this is the actual etymology of news.
People asking each other "what new things?" becomes "what news", as well as usage like "that information is new to me" becoming "that is news to me"
It's not only okay not to pluralize with an apostrophe, ever, but as a bonus it makes what you wrote into English.
Might as well call it Olds then, these days, considering how repetitious it all is.
Hello fellow old
That automobile manufacturer disappeared.
It is, and I hate it
It takes less time to Google that or ask a device, than to post that disinfo
Disinfo gets engagement though.
I'm surprised. Merriam-Webster is usually the Urban Dictionary of print dictionaries. I'd have more expected them to change their definition because "muh common usage."
Hacks. OED or death.
I love that there are strong opinions like this out there for dictionaries.
You've convinced me. I'm ride or die for OED now too.
I never really thought about choosing a side, but I am a staunch supporter of the Oxford comma. I guess now I know which side I’m on. Let’s fucking go
Oh, extra points for the Oxford comma, too. That automatically grants you Pope status.
There's dozens of us!
the gold standard lexicon
Hopefully you're an "Oxford comma, ride or die", too.
Of course! I'd have thought that went without saying. I'm not a barbarian.
I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I
recognize Missourigive up my Oxford comma.Oooo! Oooo!
I once worked with a guy from Missouri who said, "you know that little stub that sticks down into Arkansas? If we cut that off and gave it to Arkansas, it'd raise the average IQ of both states by 10 points."
Always thought it was funny, but never knew if he was joking.
Oxford comma, ride, or die
I do like that vampire weekend song.
I once read an article praising the 1913 edition of the Webster's dictionary and I have been using it ever since (in the form of GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English). That with etymonline makes the reading experience quite pleasant.
Webster's still had morals in 1913. I wouldn't shun a 1913 edition.
Well, you and I were already basically besties, weren't we @The_Picard_Maneuver?
Anyone have the definition of OED?
It's the Oxford English Dictionary
etymology has nothing to do with common usage.
also common usage is what defines words; that has nothing to do with MW. that's how language works. i can't believe there are still prescriptionists in this century.
N.O. (Negative Order)
johN Oliver
Never eat shredded wheat
NESW
Damn right. Wheat shredders are important to the economy.
Not Everyone Wants Sausage
Not Safe Entering Work.
News from Snoops
Plural for "new" was my presumption as well. That means a news article can actually be called a "new".
it's the opposite of olds
As I remember olds is short for: Offhand Lewd Developments and Summaries
No actually means "noteworthy observation" so it's nice to get that validation.
How many people are like this? I hope it's way less than a percent but experience tells me it's a lot more. 😭
Of course we all know that "news" stands for Never EVER Work Safe.
Isnt that Amazon warehouse motto?
Yes, but they got it from earlier companies, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
The movie dramatisation of the triangle factory showed the awful conditions. Trying to make everyone clock out while the building was burning down around them. Madness.
This is Webster, named after the guy who butchered English for fun and fame? It's like dunning-kruger became a linguistic architect.
Wasn't he trying to simplify it? He's the reason for most of our Americanized spellings, I'm pretty sure.
Literally is literally not literally except when it literally is literally.
Idk if all the people in this comment section are joking, it means things that are new. New information about the world.
They should've checked this from the authority himself: Gary Busey.
No is really enough but a good addition would be to "Try again and get it right."