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Comment by foo-bar-baz529 | Hacker News Reader

Is this a belt-and-suspenders solution?

This is the worst one for me. I can maybe think of what it means, but I never heard it before, and could easily be imagining a meaning.

Some of the other Claude-isms (quickly googling, especially 'gate' and 'canonical') I feel the issue is they sound right, but aren't specific enough to why we are doing something.

Personally my least favorite is the overuse of "quietly" (e.g. "No tricks. No marketing gimmicks. Just one company quietly outperforming the others"), and the one that makes the least sense to me is "that's the wedge."

I'm curious how these become so ingrained. Then the uncomfortable part is humans start repeating it more (a colleague said "belt-and-suspenders" during brainstorming the other day).

I heard "belt and suspenders" at least 20 years ago (meaning multiple solutions to a problem with backup in case one fails), and maybe would be longer if I were older. You could blame Claude for overusing it or importing it to other cultures maybe, but it's not in the category of invented phrases or ones that only barely mean something in the specific context Claude used them.

Yeah I've definitely heard belt-and-suspenders since way before LLMs were a thing. Probably even used it once or twice myself.

Yes, and that actually sharpens my previous conclusions.

That's an importance nuance and makes the previous statements even more clear. I have the full picture now.

Claude does at least use the British English version of the phrase to me - not sure whether its picking up a language setting or reacting to my spelling etc. The American version does sound odd over hear.

What's the difference between the two usages?

"Belt and braces" (UK) vs. "belt and suspenders" (US). I'm pretty sure the phrases have the same meaning, they just use a different word to refer to the thing that holds pants|trousers up.

And the word "suspenders" in British English means what Americans would call a garter belt, hence it sounding particularly odd over here.

That is what I had in mind. I was also wondering what American call them so thanks for answering that.

Americans call bum bags fanny packs. Always raises a smile.

The US usage is much kinkier

Worth doing before merge if you want the belt and suspenders.

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