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Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

Step 1) Allow Gov to build up regulations so complex that it requires a force of nature to over come. Step 2) Big Tech builds technology around those regulations and sells it to people. Step 3) Viola! we have a giant massive ocean-like moat that surrounds the Big Gov + Big Tech castle. Never to be breached by the likes of Silicon Valley startups or otherwise.

We are already in a dystopian time.

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I see it frequently here... I suppose it comes from French. Viola means rape(il la viola) or break the law(il viola la loi). The real one is voilà! And dropping the accent, is apparently acceptable in English. Voila! ;)

Because we're writing in English, "viola" is neither rape nor lawbreaking, though "violate" can mean either of those. In English, "viola" is the name of a stringed instrument.

Voila, behold a viola! One fourth of a string quartet!

But if you're irked by "viola", it could be worse, they could have written "wallah", which is all too frequent.

And in Hindi, Wallah means 'person'. Generally used in conjunction with their business. For example, a sweet shop owner is called a Mithai Wallah.

Violà! A wallah in Walla Walla with a wall a' wallabies!

https://wallawalla.org

> In English, "viola" is the name of a stringed instrument.

Or a flower.

Contextually the person is obviously trying to use the french borrow word voilà.

> il

Are you mixing French and Italian articles?

As an addendum wiktionary[0] is always useful when searching other meanings of a word

[0]https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/viola

il is a pronoun[0] in French.

I haven't learned French since high school, but here's how I would translate the examples:

il la viola "He raped her"

il viola la loi "He broke the law"

[0](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/il#French)

oh, I did not know, but I studied about 6 hours of French in my life, so it is not surprising.

I laughed hard at this revelation

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