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Comment by surfingdino | Hacker News Reader

Great project, shame the author did not google the username.

Hey, I'd just like to tune in here real quick. I've been using this username since I was like 10, long before I really understood what Nazis are. By the time I learned about this, I've already had this username for years and changing it everywhere would have been a ton of work. As a native German speaker, this association is really not something people generally make. I'd mostly just like to state that I'm probably as far away from being a right extremist as I can be.

Nobody's accusing you of being one. Peace.

Such a dumb complaint. “Werwolf” is the regular German word for “werewolf” which occurs in every single novel that writes about werewolves (including the German translation of Stephanie Meyer's popular werewolves-and-vampires stories), and going by Levenshtein distance, “WerWolv” as a username is no closer to the German “Werwolf” than English “Werewolf” is.

You know the Nazis had plans called blue, red, yellow, pine tree, Icarus, heron, sea lion, northern lights, typhoon, Isabella, Hercules, etc? Should all those words now be stricken from the German lexicon because stupid Americans aren't able to consider that a German-speaker would use a common German word appropriately?

There are certain German words which are now often avoided because of Nazi associations (eg, Führer), but yeah Werwolf isn't really one of them.

As someone who for few years regularly was in position where the correct german term for role I performed included the word Führer... Maybe they are avoided outside of german language, and maybe some of them in more colloquial german, but official/formal terminology? That's the thing with general terms.

Why's that?

Google it.

You are aware that there are languages other than English, and that the author is Swiss?

It may even blow your mind that Google searches are not in fact the same for other people, and can vary in time, location, and the individual searching for something.

So perhaps you should explicitly say what your concern is?

When I search for werwolv, I get the person's github entry, and the german entry for 'Werewolf' https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werwolf

Ah. Yeah, perhaps, but that was a normal, common word that the bad guys used because it sounded scary, but which still has its original meaning. It's not a word I'd primarily associate with those particular bad guys.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werwolf

probably not a good idea to pick a username sounding closely to that stuff.

I get what you’re saying. I wouldn’t pick it for myself. Still, he’s from Switzerland where German is a local language, and that’s a normal German word outside the Nazi usage. It wasn’t one of the ones they invented themselves.

I think it’s closer to, say, “beer hall”, which isn’t inherently Nazi even though “beer hall putsch” was their thing. They can still have beer halls.

Isn't "Werewolf", a common D&D monster (well, actually probably uncommon or even rare in D&D world, but you get what I mean), has the same pronunciation? I guess the Nazis just picked something that sound scary and stealthy.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werwolf

(Or, direct link to using google translate to get the gist

https://de-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Werwolf?_x_tr... )

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