Hacker News Reader

> And what is it with the trend to end so many words with “-ism” these days?

According to wikipedia[0], "isms" have been derided since the mid-19th century at least.

They may have existed for 500 years; I wouldn’t know. What I do know is that in the last maybe 2-3 years their use has increased tremendously. I don’t know why it annoys me so much. Maybe it seems lazy, like the writer can’t find a word that suits his need so he makes one up by bastardizing an existing noun. Maybe it’s being used as some kind of signal, like I’m part of the hipster intelligencia of the day.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com