To be clear, you are on record as equating content moderation on private platforms with Nazism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung#:~:text=The%20S....
When I don't intend a Nazi reference, I will pick a different color of shirt, like green or blue.
It also seems that a two-word form Brown Shirt also saw some use (in reference to the Nazis).
...Uh huh. What, exactly, did you think it meant? You clearly had something in mind.
I genuinely appreciate and commend your honesty about the fact that you didn't previously know that.
Separately, it's an unfortunate that even on this forum, the term Brownshirt has been watered down to the point that it's lost its Nazi association completely, much like other Nazi terminology that has been rehabilitated in recent years.
A Google n-gram comparison of "nazi" and "brownshirt" shows the latter to be vastly rare compared to the former.
I just compared several terms associated with the Nazis: brownshirt,wehrmacht,luftwaffe,hakenkreuz. Their popularity is in the same ballpark.
Luftwaffe is showing a strange resurgence, having overtaken brownshirt.
Brownshirt was on a popularity rise since 1960, but has declined recently. It is now only about 3 times more popular than hakenkreuz, though, which I would think is pretty obscure.
I think people tend to be relatively reluctant to do a dictionary lookup on a rarely heard word that is made of two everyday English words like "brown" and "shirt" and which is easily explained as a fairly obvious metaphor.
:-o
It also conveys low status.
Rules are made by higher status people in white shirts, but interpreted rigidly by lower status in brown/green/blue/...
If you've been throwing that term around for a while, this might explain any odd reactions you've got.
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-sa
There isn't an alternative grammatical parsing that changes that.
>A racist, especially a violent, right-wing one.[0]
Oxford Dictionary has an even broader definition[1]
As noted by other users, "brownshirt" is also used to describe "anyone in authority."[2]
I actually debated writing "pedantism nazi" instead of "grammar nazi" because I knew you would make that exact argument that grammar is not relevant. I also considered "semantics nazi" but decided against it as semantics is "the study of meanings"[3], but it is clear that you are actually more concerned with creating records of fault and "ignorance",[4] while you allow yourself to define GP's transgression in vague terms like "equate" meaning anything from regarding as equal or equivalent to "comparable"[5]. You claim that the meaning is unambiguous yet this nonexistent second meaning is so prevalent that GP had never heard of the first one.
[0] https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=Brownshirt
[1] https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=Brown...
[2] https://urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the%20Brownshirt...
[3] https://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/semantics
>A person who is perceived to be authoritarian, autocratic, or inflexible; one who seeks to impose his or her views upon others[0]?
I am not working to recast anything. You conflated a moral argument that one should not use words that reference Nazism in any way with a factual evaluation of the meaning of the word necessarily being the object of that reference. Had you said "the usage of 'brownshirt' to mean 'one who abuses power' is not considered appropriate" that would be a different matter. What you said, however, is factually wrong; there is no equivalence being made between Nazism and "content moderation." That is to say, you should have said that the second definition is not appropriate, instead of denying it's existence to then change the meaning of the sentence such that it is then equating content moderation on private platforms with Nazism. Unless by "equating" you meant "to make comparable" where "comparable" means "an examination of two or more items to establish similarities and dissimilarities." I should mention that Oxford does not have "comparable" in "equating" and the definition of comparable above is almost certainly not what is meant by "equating" in any event.
I personally have never used "brownshirt" to mean "authoritarian." My motivation for my initial post was to show you with a simple double-meaning comment that words can have multiple meanings.
[0] https://oed.com/search/advanced/Meanings?textTermText0=nazi&...
brown shirt (plural brown shirts)
1. Alternative form of Brownshirt
2. A worker whose role is identified by a uniform with a brown or khaki shirt.
> We really could use a brown shirt in the Park. 2007, Dana Stabenow, A Deeper Sleep, page 36
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/brown_shirt
digital brownshirt (plural digital brownshirts)
1. (slang, US, derogatory) A right-wing blogger.
> "They paid actors to make make phony video press releases and paid cash to some reporters who were willing to take it in return for positive stories. And every day they unleash squadrons of digital brownshirts to harass and hector any journalist who is critical of the President." Al Gore (October 2005), “Al Gore Addresses We Media”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brownshirt
There doesn't seem to be any evidence that "brown shirt" nor "brownshirt" was used a metaphor for a person in any kind of role before the 1920's, when it came into use in reference to the Nazi storm troopers.
The "digital brownshirt" term was likely coined by someone who knows what "brownshirt" means; their intent is to express the idea that right-wing bloggers are like Nazis of the digital age. That use does not assigns a new meaning to the "brownshirt" constituent word.
I have seen the word very rarely myself; I passively learned about it decades ago, and have not seen it used since. I used it about once or twice myself. Since that time, I have become more fastidious about looking up unknown words (which has become easier, thanks to mobile devices!) It's highly probable that the person I saw using the term decades ago knew that it was a Nazi reference.
Please stop using that term unless you're talking specifically about the worshippers of Kali who would strangle and rob travelers in India in the 19th century. It does not mean anything else. It can never mean anything else.