Comment by Vt71fcAqt7 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Vt71fcAqt7 | Hacker News Reader

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I hope you realize that you have given a link to an encyclopedia to show the definition of a word. The fifth edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, published in 2011, already gave a second definition of brownshirt:

>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

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38650782

[5] https://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/equating

Using “brownshirt” for anyone in authority is clearly missing the point entirely. There is a reason the brownshirts were eliminated after the nazis came to power. They were violent gangs of nazi thugs operating outside the law to terrorize opponents. When the nazi party came to power they were not useful or necessary anymore, since now the party could just change the law and perform terror through official institutions.

> thugs

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.

Fair enough - I promise I won’t call dang a thug if he removes my comment!

You are working really hard to gaslight a clearly Nazi thing as a non-Nazi thing. Sturmabteilung is Brownshirt is a Nazi, period.

Why haven't you asked why I have recast "nazi" into meaning

>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&...

see also: https://merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Nazi

https://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=nazi

You're still wrong. Here are 2 uses.

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://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/digital_brownshirt#English

All of the above are misuses of "brownshirt" by people who heard the word and, like I did, neglected to check a dictionary, thereby unwittingly invoking a Nazi reference.

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.

Words for clothing tend to shift their reference to the wearers of the clothing over time. Perhaps it was so ordinary that it never made it into literary record.

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