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Comment by ManuelKiessling | Hacker News Reader

Considering the original meaning of the term „decimated“, that other term probably has not been decimated, at least not literally.

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I do miss /.'s "whoosh", even if the rest of the place has gone to hell. But I'm firmly convinced that the commenter you're replying to is all too aware of the definition of "decimate", and the word's abuse at the hands of others. The rest of the sentence seems to make that clear, but could be missed by non-native English speakers.

Ha. The hill I'm ready to die on is never using the '\s' tag. If it's not apparent enough without it, then maybe it's not worth writing at all?

I can understand that. The only slight distinction I see is that if you make a sarcastic statement in real life, there are a number of other cues to inform the listeners of sarcastic intent. Tone of voice and body language would be the main ones, but prior knowledge of the speaker is also key. None of those survive into a digital space and so I think having some sort of convention to replace its loss seems reasonable.

It's not a slight distinction, the smirk is missing and is replaced by the '/s'

It awfully similar to humming or 'pretend percussion with your fingers' of the song you're hearing in your head. It's basically spot on for you but most of the time no one else has a clue what the hell are you trying to pretend to play

Except in this particular case several people picked up on the sarcasm without the /s. I would say "omit at your own risk".

No sarcasm can be apparent enough for everybody, according to Poe’s law.

Got me! I’m indeed not a native speaker, but I didn’t want that to stop me from giving it a try.

I think you missed the sarcasm. "Irregardless" "Literally" "loost" ...

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