You say that like it's mutually exclusive. Nobody gets to choose how other people use language. Definitions are whatever people agree that they are, even if you're not one of the people who agrees with it.\

How do people agree what they are without telling other people their meaning explicitly or implicitly? What about people that intentionally misuse language to deceive? What about language that is self-descriptive due to selective use?

I'm aware of prescriptivism vs descriptionism but this conversation isn't actually about that. In fact, I am already following a descriptivist line of reasoning, if you will review my earlier comment. I am saying how tankie is used nowadays.

You can dislike that definition of tankie all you want

What definition? Which one do I dislike? I don't know what you're talking about.

the fact that they used it in this way and that you understood it means that it was used correctly.

The way I understood it is, "anyone defending a target of US empire in any way from the left that I would like to stop listening to before my brain breaks". Seems spot-on to me.

The evolution of language may hurt people, but denying the reality of evolving language hurts nobody but yourself. The etymology and history is good to know (and the meme relies on it), but the new definition is still a correct alternate definition.

What on earth do you think you're replying to?

[–] PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Dude, idk.

I was just like "you seem to be telling the dude that he isn't using tankie correctly, but that's not how language works"

And then you replied that I'm wrong, and seemed to be making an appeal that the negative connotations had to do with the invalidity of the definition.

Our wires are so crossed at this point that a random car in 1960 Spain just got spontaneously hotwired.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 days ago

I was just like "you seem to be telling the dude that he isn't using tankie correctly, but that's not how language works"

What I actually did was provide some context for the term and how it's used nowadays. The point of the history lesson was to point out how the term became appropriated and set the stage for laughing about how some Trots get called tankie nowadays. The point of "how it's used nowadays" was go provide a counter-narrative for the "definition" they were taking their own liberties with. I did what they did, but I'm more correct in my context.

Injecting a prescription vs description debate isn't really relevant.

And then you replied that I'm wrong, and seemed to be making an appeal that the negative connotations had to do with the invalidity of the definition.

Yes that was me misunderstanding which word we were talkjng about. There's another thread I had in mind. I don't think what I said there applies to the word tankie.

Our wires are so crossed at this point that a random car in 1960 Spain just got spontaneously hotwired.

I can make it worse, just give me time.