Hacker News Reader

Comment by helmholtz | Hacker News Reader

Christ I hate the word 'overwhelm'. It's SO jarring. It's like when people say "I'm feeling melancholy". NO! You're feeling melancholic! You did something "on purpose" and not "purposely"! And the world is not full of overwhelm. It's full of emotional overload[1] perhaps.

[1] https://www.dailywritingtips.com/overwhelm-is-a-verb-isnt-it...).

View on HN

"Overwhelm" is a fine word. It just isn't a noun.

From the post:

> The world is full of overwhelm.

This is a total grammar fail[1]. Ironic, perhaps, hopefully, but definitely unappealing.

[1] Phrasing chosen purposely, purposefully, and also on purpose. Sorry!

> It's like when people say "I'm feeling melancholy". NO! You're feeling melancholic!

While I fully agree with you and it sounds incredibly weird, dictionaries don't agree with you on this one. They consider "melancholy" a synonym of "melancholic".

Yep, and they state that purposely is a real word that's been in use for 500 years. I'll fight them to my grave! My beef with it has always been that two perfect words exist already: melancholia and melancholic. Between them, they cover all the ways in which I wish to use the word.

> I'll fight them to my grave!

I would advise you to reflect on which you care more about:

1. Being a supportive to a friend who feels so sad or stressed they need a more expressive word.

2. Urging people to change their words in ways that do not impact meaning.

This article is the first time I've seen it used as a noun. It stopped me in my tracks (so I could duckduckgo it), then it made me consider that maybe the article wasn't written by a native English speaker, then (finally) I read the rest of the article.

Note that a person who is likely to feel that way is also likely to be less well-equipped to predict your specific preferences for how to express that.

Fair enough, although in writing such a post, the author does take up the mantle of having some kind of expertise in the first place that enables them to preach to others. As in, the advice presumably works for her to not feel overwhelmed.

My comment is widely off-topic either way though.

Wouldn’t it be “I feel overwhelmed?”

Indeed, that would work too. But since the author was talking about the world as one...

Also, to preempt other comments, I know that purposely is a word. I just hate the sound of it :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com