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Comment by ido | Hacker News Reader

Well, as I said I'm probably just not in your target demographic.

I would like to give you one tip tho:

   He not only took his product from spare-time to $2
   million, he's also a true mensch!

I think you are using that word the way you would in Yiddish, in Austrian German referring to someone as "mensch" can sometimes actually be seen as derogatory ;)

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I was also confused by a friend who came back from New York and referred to someone as a mensch.

It means human being or person in German.

Apparently it means "whore" in Austrian slang [1].

I'm not a native Austrian, but was told several years ago by a friend that I shouldn't use that word as people might misunderstand what I meant by it...

Might be a Tyrol thing tho.

[1] http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/Mensch.html

Um, sure that's not somebody pulling somebody's leg? The slogan for DM is "Hier bin ich Mensch" and I'm pretty sure they don't mean "whore."

If it also means "human" and "wow!" I can't see how I can go wrong.

FTR, I asked my husband, who is Wiener.

With the right intonation & context it could also mean "stupid woman/girl" but not whore.

I think that was probably what my friend meant, "whore" was dict.cc's idea.

As with many things in austria, it totally depends how you say it. Written, it means "human", "good person" in general.

Only if you say it in a bad context, with slang, it means sth bad. (but not really whore... more like crazy person) "de oide is so a ménsch!" vs "er ist wirklich ein guter mensch."

I'm from austria and I've never heard "mensch" used in a negative context.

As a native german speaker I absolutely read it as positively as it was intended.

I'm chalking it up to the fact that Wienerisch can make anything sound dirty. ;)

Ah, I thought everybody wanted to be successful? ;)

Thanks for the heads up on 'mensch.' I know it means 'human' but, asking around, doesn't seem anyone finds it derogatory. The yiddish stays!

>Ah, I thought everybody wanted to be successful? ;)

In Vienna? HAH AHA HAHAHA HAHA AHHA HAHA HAHA HA HAAA!!!

ROFL

You haven't lived here long.

Believe it or not, I have, which is why I'm putting on the conference. Get it?

The one thing I don't like about Vienna is the "meh" attitude, about everything, even what is (theoretically) an individual's own passion. And I believe that's as subject to role modeling as everything else. I am a cheerful, if occasionally overly exuberant, optimist. I fucking care, is what I'm saying.

I don't hold any hopes of changing a lot of people -- but you never know, that could happen. What I want is to attract and meet the people who also feel their passion in an unironic way.

Despite your jabs at my theoretical personality flaws, we clearly agree.

And I'm trying to do something about it.

>Despite your jabs at my theoretical personality flaws, we clearly agree.

Just wondering if you've considered the delivery, not the message, is what may be getting in your way here .. I've seen it go both ways, also. If the person has genuine statistics on record of having had a startup success, then no problems: but if the claims are being made without any real basis to back them up, well then .. that can get mighty cold, mighty fast. The hacker elite respect none whose words are mightier than their deeds ..

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