this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2024
771 points (93.8% liked)

Microblog Memes

5778 readers
2322 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

Rules:

  1. Please put at least one word relevant to the post in the post title.
  2. Be nice.
  3. No advertising, brand promotion or guerilla marketing.
  4. Posters are encouraged to link to the toot or tweet etc in the description of posts.

Related communities:

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] undergroundoverground@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Nope, nazi is a specific term for a specific kind of fascist. Dont get me wrong, there are plenty of people who don't understand the words that they use but thats not the same things as them being correct.

So no, the Israeli government are not nazis and only a moron would think that they were.

[–] tabarnaski@sh.itjust.works 15 points 3 months ago (32 children)

The word "fascism" comes from Mussolini's ideas and was later used to denote any political system with similar ideas. I think the use of the word "nazism" has been generalized in the same way.

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

Nazi = National Socialist even though they weren’t socialists. Go figure.

load more comments (31 replies)
[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago (38 children)

Yes, prescriptively, it's a very certain type. You'll notice how for instance in Wikipedia they'd capitalise the n in "Nazi", while on forums you might see people using just "nazi". Is there a difference? Yes. The same way "literally" means literally, but it can also be used just as emphasis. And that's the opposite of it's meaning.

Yet because some people like to use it that way, it's accepted as a colloquialism into the language.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colloquialism

Just like that wasn't the first definition of nazi, so too "literally" has a several definitions.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/literally

Literally is also used to emphasize a statement and suggest that it is surprising:

See how that works?

You're using the non capitalised version as well. So you're incorrect. The Israeli government are nazis. They might not be Nazis, but they are nazis.

load more comments (38 replies)
[–] Caboose12000@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (36 children)

Language is descriptive, not prescriptive. Word meanings can change over time, the only thing that makes a word's definition "correct" is if it successfully communicates information.

I'm not saying that to castigate you but to make your point bullet proof.

I actually agree with your definition, but arguing that a word's definition is wrong simply because "thats not how it's defined" ignores the way that real people actually use words today

load more comments (36 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)