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Comment by zaidf | Hacker News Reader

Google+ is ruining Google's products like a virus. All mega-successful google products such as gmail, search and android didn't need much selling to the consumer. With g+, they are literally shoving it in their users' faces no matter if they dislike it. Why are the Google employees actually building solid products putting up with this?

At least a half dozen times I have clicked on a public google+ post only to be coerced into attaching my google account with a google+ account. Screw being able to read said PUBLIC posts. My solution has been to logout and read it. But I'm sure plenty of people fill up that form mostly out of disdain and google gets to count them as a new user.

Really, getting new users by uber trickery is bad not just for the user but as much for Google Inc because it isn't a signal for a quality product(in this case, the exact opposite).

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By literally you mean metaphorically?

lit·er·al·ly /ˈlitərəlē/ Adverb

- In a literal manner or sense; exactly: "the driver took it literally when asked to go straight over the traffic circle".

- Used to acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling.

emphasis mine.

So the new definition of literally is literally "not literally"?

Language, it's awesome like that.

Yes. Think about the word awful -it used to mean "inspiring awe" but it flipped and now always means bad.

I got curious so I looked up some examples that still can mean something or the exact opposite:

Bolt - run away or secure in place

Cleave - cut or join

Garnish - add (parsley) or remove (wages)

Weather - weather the storm or become weathered

Some of your examples are very different from the case of "literally".

"Awful" isn't a reversal of meaning, it's a narrowing of meaning.

> Bolt - run away or secure in place

These are homynyms, not divergent meanings. A crossbow bolt is fast, a door bolt is secure.

> Cleave - cut or join

These appear to have converged from the separate Old English verbs "cleofan" and "clifian": http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&s...

(Interestingly, "literally" has been misused to mean its opposite since at least the 1680s: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=literally&allow... . We've held off the "it means just what I choose it to mean" hordes so far, why give up now?)

Some more of these "contronyms"

http://www.rinkworks.com/words/contronyms.shtml

Words that are their own antonyms.

My favorite is off: "off - off, on (e.g., the alarm went off)"

King James II of England, when he saw the restored and expanded St. Paul's Cathedral, called it "amusing, awful and artificial." The architect, Sir Christopher Wren, was not offended. On the contrary, he was flattered.

The king did not mean that it was funny or entertaining. He was not calling it atrocious or appalling. He did not consider it fake or pretentious.

In 17th century England, amusing meant "riveting." Awful meant "full of awe" or "awe inspiring." And artificial meant "artistic."

"My solution has been to logout and read it."

Too much trouble. My solution is not to bother. People putting their content behind Google+, Facebook, and other fences should know that they are excluding a potentially large audience that prefers to stick with the open web. They might not care, but they should be aware of it, in case they might be interested some day in allowing people to read what they have to say.

"My solution has been to logout and read it."

Whenever I need to sign out for something, I just open up incognito mode/private browsing.

Agreed. I have a gmail account and I use them for search -- that's ENOUGH of my data for any one company to have (and it's probably too much, at that).

Everytime I visit another Google property I'm presented with yet-another "turn your account into a G+ account" popup.

It's very annoying, to say the least. I wish they'd just let me pay for the damn service, I'm getting very tired of being the product they sell (and not behaving exactly as they think a good little product should).

I stopped leaving my Gmail account logged in while browsing almost two years ago because I was already sick of all their recommendations, personalizations and tracking (search history being shared across all devices was especially creepy). Now I just log in to check my mail and immediately log out, making sure not to do any random browsing in between.

Sounds like I haven't been missing out on any of the fun.

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