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Let me pay for Firefox

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802 points csmantle | 7 comments | 13 Jul 25 08:38 UTC | HN request time: 1.051s | source | bottom
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jurgenaut23 ◴[13 Jul 25 09:41 UTC] No.44548891[source]▶
I think it’s fascinating how languages shape our society. In this case, the ambiguity between free as in “at no cost” and free as in “freedom” is probably hurting the FOSS landscape. In French, there are two very distinct terms for this: “gratuit” vs “libre”. And it doesn’t sound as an oxymoron to pay for a “logiciel libre”.
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LeoPanthera ◴[13 Jul 25 09:46 UTC] No.44548921[source]▶
“Gratis” meaning “no cost” is an English word, albeit an uncommonly used one.
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yawpitch ◴[13 Jul 25 09:58 UTC] No.44548986[source]▶
Technically that’s a Latin word that just happens to have kept the same spelling and meaning in English.
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1. hnlmorg ◴[13 Jul 25 10:36 UTC] No.44549207[source]▶
You’ve made the faux pas of presenting the spiel that a word’s etymology or genus means it cannot be English.

While an entrepreneurial view, this mammoth disinformation is equivalent to plaza cafe sofa schmooze.

(I know this isn’t the most coherent post I’ve ever made, but I wanted to make a point by cramming in as many borrowed words as I could)

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2. bigDinosaur ◴[13 Jul 25 11:09 UTC] No.44549424[source]▶
English has not been in its final form forever, therefore there was a language or languages that preceded it. English words derive from one of these previous languages. Since a word from another language cannot be an English word, English does in fact not have any English words except ones that sprang arbitrarily out of nowhere.
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3. technothrasher ◴[13 Jul 25 11:35 UTC] No.44549538[source]▶
> English words derive from one of these previous languages. Since a word from another language cannot be an English word [...]

You sabotage your own argument with these two sentences.

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4. thoroughburro ◴[13 Jul 25 11:49 UTC] No.44549634[source]▶
> Since a word from another language cannot be an English word

This is false, so your argument is also false.

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5. yawpitch ◴[13 Jul 25 12:03 UTC] No.44549734[source]▶
I’m enjoying the schadenfreude (note, the English word, not the German one) of watching this thread unspool.
6. bigDinosaur ◴[14 Jul 25 00:14 UTC] No.44555042{3}[source]▶
I genuinely am shocked that someone could read what I wrote and think I was serious. Poe's law strikes again.
7. bigDinosaur ◴[14 Jul 25 00:15 UTC] No.44555050{3}[source]▶
As per my other reply, I'm genuinely shocked that you took my comment to be serious. It's basically as satirical one can get of the position that a word cannot be a word in multiple languages. Poe's law and all that I suppose.