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Comment by noahc | Hacker News Reader

I am torn on this issue. I try not to be like this, but words have meaning. And if words don't have meaning or have arbitrary meaning then we can't communicate. Some words have more specific meaning than others.

One thing that drives me absolutely nuts is when people (my girlfriend) use supposedly to not mean anything. My girlfriend uses it when someone else told her something. So she might say, "Supposedly, She went into town today to buy food." and that just means someone told her she went into town.To me this is an empty meaning and "supposedly" implies that maybe she didn't go into town or maybe she went into town to meet her lover and not really to buy food.

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Some people believe the dictionary prescribes how words are to be used. Others believe the dictionary merely captures descriptions of how words are already being used. I think the truth is probably somewhere in between.

These aren't so much beliefs of "what dictionaries do", but what they should do. For example, Websters aims to be descriptive, not prescriptive. How much they succeed is debatable. The point is that this issue isn't solely in the mind of the reader.

What would be an example of a prescriptive dictionary? I guess my point is that all these words came from somewhere else, right? The dictionary editor isn't sitting there coining new words for things that previously did not have a name and hoping the stick... right?

L'Académie française has published such dictionaries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acad%C3%A9mie_fran%C3%A7aise

That's probably true but I think this really speaks to the fact that many of us get all technical for lack of certain social skills. Like your comment's parent... The example he gave says a lot. On the one hand if you get what the person means even if they don't use the technically correct term all that really matters is that you both understand the intended meaning. On the other hand I think it's perfectly fine to nitpick at times. Those times would be if someone is very obviously ignorant of what a word means, especially if they use it wrong constantly.

But in the end I think being able to know when to pick those battles is a subtle social skill some people need to learn. It's really hard to explain. It's an interesting topic because it entails all the different ways humans communicate. It's not just words. It's tone, facial expression, volume, gestures, context, and even knowing a person's background or history can give you those subtle clues as to whether this is an ignorant person who needs to be corrected or if it's just an isolated fluke that still allows you to get the intended message and therefore requires no corrections from you.

Me? Well most of the time I think people get what I mean, dictionaries be damned and nitpicking a definition is a petty way to argue sometimes.

As your girlfriend wasn't there to observe that person going into town, the word 'supposedly' makes sense.

Maybe technically, but the word doesn't really add anything to the statement if someone uses it anytime they didn't observe what happened. Supposedly is akin to saying "Assuming what this person said is true, ..." which in many cases implies doubt (why not just say "so and so said she went into town").

I think his point was that it makes literal sense, but it doesn't help the process of communication, which is why he's torn on the issue.

I think his point was that it makes literal sense, but it doesn't help the process of communication

I think it does help - it implies that there is doubt (and possibly some lying involved with what's going on).

Simply stating "so and so said she went into town" is factual (although emphasizing "said" can also imply the same things that using "supposedly" does).

However, if the top-level-commenter's GF is using "supposedly" not in this way, I'd agree that'd be annoying. Maybe she's the mistrustful sort?

As a point of clarification she uses it in this sense:

"Supposedly, Aunt Sue is coming down this weekend"

What she means is "My mom said, "Aunt Sue is coming down this weekend"

What I interpret this to mean is "Aunt Sue says she is coming down this weekend. But, She's so flakey we shouldn't plan anything around her"

The but could really be anything, and it all depends on context, shared knowledge of the situation or person we're talking about.

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