Hey, you taught me a new word! Cheers.
Perhaps you can prefix the split post's content at the same indentation level as its own content with something like Moderator-edit: Split from $URL as offtopic, original parent was: $PARENT or somesuch would help.
In effect, the problem is that quoting and threading solve the same problem: giving the reader context. The original author's post relied entirely on threading, which you broke by splitting off the discussion. I think that adding a quote to the split post would restore context.
There is some risk that by selectively quoting, you are becoming an editor rather than just a moderator. The part that is relevant for this particular split is obvious, but that won't always be true, so there should be some mechanism to show that you as a moderator accept responsibility for any misquoting. You could indicate the quote with italics and some very brief text explaining that you as a moderator put the quote in there. Or you could set it off with a thin orangered boarder, perhaps.
What I wonder is:
(?) Is OP a native English speaker and is this word used in daily contexts,
(or?) did he use it because he might not be an English speaker and he searched for the words in his own language and that is the word that came out, instead of the more common "tirelessly".
(or?) he is a native speaker and he knows this word is not used in daily/common conversations... so, by using this different concoction, did he meant to translate some additional feeling? is "indefatigable" a stronger "tirelessly"?
I know it's oddly specific but I am not a native speaker and insight into these odd ducks helps me build a maturer mind model of it all.
Thank you.
thank you.
I think it has better imagery. When I hear "tireless", I think of being tired, but forcing myself to stay awake. When I hear "indefatigable", I think of someone playing sports or going on a long journey and pushing through the physical exhaustion.
So yeah, a bit of the first and a bit of the third most likely. Walter Bright is the author of the D language, so I expect him to be intimately aware of the effort required, hence the more vivid imagery.
It also reminds me of words like 'irreparable', rolls off the tongue quickly.
Now, when I hear someone use the word 'extant', especially during spoken language, I immediately think it's pretentious.
The British Navy had a lot of ships with names that are good sounding archaic adjectives such as Indignant, Illustrious, Indomitable, Undaunted, Vivacious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ship_names_of_the_Roya...)
They also use names that seem bad choices today such as Inconstant, Inflexible and Terrible (that word changed meaning over the centuries. Originally, it meant “terror-inducing”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Terrible lists eight ships with that name, going back to 1694, so I guess that stil was the intended meaning for the one from 1944)
The word dreadful (almost certainly also a warship name) has not suffered quite such an ignominious decline but "I'm dreadfully sorry" is quite often seen in the wild.
Also OP could just be really well read.
Personally, I'm glad to see indefatigable in the wild (at least more in the wild than a game system and a pod cast). I think the word is really cool and I haven't found an opportunity to use it myself.
I like it. I think it's a well-chosen word.
I don't recall ever hearing the word, but it appears a lot in books I've read, even recently written ones.
"indefatigable" fits what I wanted to convey better than "tirelessly". From the Cambridge English Dictionary:
"always determined and energetic in trying to achieve something and never willing to admit defeat"
Iain has had a plethora of reasons to abandon the project, and nobody would have blamed him. But he's persisted in the face of little encouragement, less support, and lots of complaining. It's a massive achievement. Indefatigable is the perfect word.