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Comment by Y_Y | Hacker News Reader

> "random nonces"

I find it amusing in spite of the various words that have fallen out of favour in recent times for political reasons, "nonce" continues to soldier on.

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I would guess that it's because it doesn't have any special meaning in American English primarily, most Americans have never even heard of its meaning in British slang

I in fact only learned the slang meaning five seconds ago when this discussion made me google it.

Agree, most of the Brits I know think it's hilarious that it's ended up as a term of art, and Americans are generally completely oblivious to its meaning.

I am in no great hurry to change the word though. It's not something that comes up much outside of extremely technical contexts, and whilst it's a bad word, its regional character and multiple meanings kinda make it fine. It's not like it is being used for the meaning that's offensive, the meanings have unrelated histories (and the offensive one is much newer).

I don't think it would be right to change an ordinary English word because it sounded similar to an offensive word in a foreign language, and I think that's essentially what's happened here.

There was actually an NFT startup a while back that called itself "Nonce Finance." They wound up rebranding.

Probably because this unfortunate state of affairs is very appealing to the British dark sense of humour. Americans seem much more inclined to want to replace any term that is even obliquely offensive.

See also “Fanny pack” which has made its way into British English despite the crudeness.

I do wish there was some alternative word so that I can discuss cryptography with my countryfolk.

It has not, it remains a term of abuse.

Just googled it... yikes not the cryptography joke I was expecting...

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