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Comment by jordigh | Hacker News Reader

It's a bit odd how the word "pimping" has come to mean "embellish". I know how it happened, from "pimp my ride", a show that tried to use "street" language for effect. I can't shake the awful connotations of pimping, though. Nice hardware hack problem, but I hate to think of you pimping your son.

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Agree, that word isn't the best, but as long as we are clear i'm pimping the car and not my son it's all kosher to me ;)

If you're going to rant about how the word has taken on new definitions at least be accurate about how it was used.

Pimping my son != Pimping my son's ride

As individuals, we don't have much personal agency over the evolution of language, so sometimes it's best to just let words change meaning. We wouldn't be speaking English today if people got in a fit every time a word changed meaning.

People have been using "pimp" as a verb in this context since at least the 70's, so I'd say this is a lost battle. The phrase did not come from Pimp my Ride.

edit: my interpretation of your use of quotations is one of many, but I should give you the benefit of the doubt here

A more generous interpretation of the quotes around street is that the commenter thought the language on the show was inauthentic (i.e. not real street language).

> putting quotations around the word "street" implies a certain attitude about urban culture that I'm going to assume you don't actually wish to convey.

I read those quotes as simply indicating that they weren't sure if "street" was the most accurate way to convey what they meant (urban, etc.). It is common to use quotes around a word that is an approximation of the intended meaning.

Better than the use of "porn" on sites like reddit to signify fancy photos.

Yeah, I don't like that much either. :-)

Thankfully, that usage seems to be petering out?

The author doesn't appear to speak English as his first language, so it's completely possible he's far more familiar with the informal definition of the word, especially in the context of cars.

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