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Comment by Etheryte | Hacker News Reader

As a side note for others, mid means mediocre or poor of quality, and hence chronically mid means extremely mediocre or very low quality.

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Chronically doesn't mean extremely. It means long-term or inescapably.

The dictionary agrees with both options, so I would guess this mostly comes down to local slang, or perhaps British vs American English?

The dictionary doesn't agree with both options. Cambridge has a single definition:

> In a way that continues or has continued for a long time.

Merriam-Webster offers the following two:

> continuing or occurring again and again for a long time

> always present or encountered

For"chronically" to mean "extremely" wouldn't make sense as to the root of the word, either.

The Oxford English dictionary gives the following description, in addition to the above:

> to a very great extent; extremely: chronically stupid drivers, she was chronically indecisive.

Whether it makes sense or not, the dictionary agrees with both options.

Oxford English dictionary follows the trends of language rather than setting them definitionally. They offer the "extremely" definition because the word gets misused so often, not because of any original meaning. One can argue the merits of whether a dictionary should include such misuses that have become commonplace but that's the direction they have opted to go.

In the same vein as this debate, OED considers irregardless to be a proper synonym for regardless.

Very tangentially related -- I keep hearing "disorientated" in the audio edition of The Economist (which is British).

It drives me bonkers. I'm cool with neologisms if they add value -- but a 400-year old[1] neologism that's merely a longer way to say something we already have a word for is still too young for me to consider valid.

[1] https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/01/disoriented-disor...

On one hand, I find the phrase "mid" to be pretty fucking awful, but on the other I'm old (30s) so who knows.

Right? What's wrong with "bad", "meh", "basic", "uninteresting", or "mediocre"?

Those words lack an unearned sense of superiority, which is all the rage for youths these days.

Unrelated, but what should I do about these children on my lawn?!

put signs up, edit your Twitter bio lol.

I don't like mid because it never accurately depicts the speakers actual opinion.

People usually say mid to things they think are bad, not middling. Or they believe that the thing is bad because it is middling. A poor descriptor...

I've always taken it at face value "this is mid, and therefore beneath me".

For certain cases this might not be a particularly arrogant position. For example - it might be reasonable to decide you only have time to watch exceptionally good films.

Describing people as mid sounds delusional and/or sociopathic to my ears though.

I completely agree

Is it that you are old, or that you are young enough that the transition from the slang of your peers to a newer one as the fashion of the day is recent and acutely felt?

>Is it that you are old, or that you are young enough that the transition from the slang of your peers to a newer one as the fashion of the day is recent and acutely felt?

Once you start to notice that, once pop culture starts to alienate you, you're old.

And there's no more obvious sign that you're old than complaining about modern slang.

Slurs like "chronically mid" don't belong on HN.

Dude stop gatekeeping what people can say on here and go find something better to do with your day.

I hope the irony is not lost on you that you're telling someone to stop telling other people what to say.

Does that mean that first amendment is ironic because it allows one to speak and criticize the right to speak?

Most of the comments on Reddit would be downvoted or deleted on HN. Most comments are just not that useful or interesting.

Since you gave me an excuse, I'll explain why I'm offended at the slur. The comment says:

> This is a boring legacy tech company who’s best selling point is being a discussion forum for the chronically mid.

This insult isn't about the comments on Reddit, it's about the people on Reddit. "Chronically mid" means that the people are average and will always be average. The comment is arguing that Reddit is low-value and part of their argument is that the people using Reddit are low-value "chronically mid" people. Everyone can judge for themselves whether downplaying the value of millions of people is offensive or not.

It also seems to be a sly reference to the “midwit” meme.

I doubt it. Mid is extremely commonly used slang that means "Mid-Tier", "middle-of-the-road", "middling" etc.

You're right but unfortunately it rarely gets used this way. People who say mid end up saying it so often that it seems like everything they don't like is middling instead of bad or poor.

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