Hacker News Reader

Comment by mdp2021 | Hacker News Reader

mdp2021

'Third World' was coined - I believe, by Alfred Sauvy in 1952 (following Pascal Boniface) - as an expression to literally mean "non aligned in the dichotomy of NATO vs Warsaw pact affiliance".

Stereotypes about qualities frequent in Countries of such /political/ quality (such as said alleged "need for development", following the poster) are not implied.

'Third' is proper for "non-aligned"; 'developing' when noting such state makes sense (special sense, since growth seems to be a shared goal); some other term for other cases - such as "rich in raw materials", etc.

View on HN

I can come up with list of words that were coined with some intention and gained another. Why a term was created has nothing to do with how it is used and the gp comment wasn't in the context of the cold war history.

> list of words

No need because that is the normal process, involving meaning and use - you could present the whole dictionary.

But it is none of our business if suddenly one individual or a multitude start using 'mangrove' for something they decide, and it gives no toss of credential to those who after that decide that 'mangrove' does not mean "mangrove".

So you are aware that the word has multiple connotations, yet you chose to focus on the connotation that paints the GP in the worst light... why, exactly?

An inherent need to be offended on behalf of others, in order to add some purpose to ones life.

Or I interpret it in the context it is used, referring to poor countries as third world.

All this outrage about my remark is triggering my sense of irony. Too bad I'm social drinker only.

PS: congrats to the gp who edited his comment.

> Or I interpret it

You declaredly interpreted it as «[im]polite» - different from "poorly chosen", if the readers do not have enough grounds to assume your irony to be triggered before the «outrage».

In analytical terms, "Contries seeking independence may easily be reliant on key economic sources" makes sense.

At this point you are just looking for reasons for me to be deserving of your righteousness. I can't take part in your inner struggles, so please don't feel obliged to include me in the discussion.

If you have points, present /them/. If something is not clear, clarify it.

This is the second post in which you are presenting no content.

...And this whole branch started by you stating that an expression would be «[im]polite», and another acceptable, without the /content/, again, founding the statement. We are the ones trying to make some sense of your riddles (or stubs).

If someone says "Hey, you shouldn't use that term, it's impolite." what more //content// is there to give? And what "irony" are you talking about?

And this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083720 is not even remotely a riddle. You said the origin of the term. They pointed out that the term has changed, and the person using the term wasn't using that definition anyway.

Even with it being the proper term for "non-aligned [in the cold war]", the person using the term wasn't saying non-aligned [in the cold war].

> yet you chose to focus on the connotation that paints the GP in the worst light...

Process of elimination.

There are two main connotations. The political one wasn't being used, therefore it must be the other one.

"worst" out of two is not exactly a stretch...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com