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Comment by arjan_sch | Hacker News Reader

What about "worseprovement"

Alternatively "disimprovement".

Via https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=49... and https://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=16...

Also misimprovement.

I don't think either of these 2 quite get the point across with the same "wavelengths" getting included.

As a German, I might not have thought of that but would absolutely use it to translate Verschlimmbesserung. Does it sound "normal" enough to native English speakers?

I'm Dutch, sounds pretty good to me

It's definitely a normal-sounding, memorable word for us native English speakers.

Meanwhile I won't be able to remember that German word longer than it takes me to close this tab. Vershumthingsomething.

Thumbs up, let's settle on that translation

It's totally plausible portmanteau. I get the feeling thought that it sounds more marked in English than in German where these kind of mashups are formed more freely.

The sibling post's "disimprovement" sounds more natural and has parallel form with pre-existing broadly accepted English words like "disincentive" and "disinfect".

Not sure if that's just me, but "disimprovement" sounds like *removing* an improvement that was previously there…

An improvement isn't all or nothing, it can be incremental. The dis- prefix only indicates that the increment is negative in this case.

I'm darn sure that in time the original German pronounciation would be lost and you'd hear something comparable to reading Straße as "Strabe".

Probably it would become "verskimbeserong".

It doesn't sound normal. "worse-" doesn't fit as a replacement for the "im-" prefix, because the "se" ending doesn't flow well into the plosive "prov".

"disimprove" works much better.

The similar word "unimproved" implies you did nothing to make it better, "disimproved" implies you actively made it worse.

But this is still just effectively adding "not" to the word. If you must join two words that are the antonyms of each other (like verbessern and verschlimmern), the closest match I can think of is the vulgar pun "fuxed", a blend of "fixed" (repaired) and "fucked" (broke). https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fuxed

Isn't the English word more or less "regression"? If you want to coin a new word, how about updowngrade?

"updowngrade", funnily enough, I would understand as having the (IMO misunderstood/wrong) meaning you're trying to give to "Verschlimmbesserung" in your post here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49483585 (making some parts better and some other parts worse.)

That's not what "worseprovement" conveys to me, you can worseprove a single part, intending to make it better, making that same thing actually worse by the very same change.

It's close enough and has been already in use. A regression of features quality - for example.

There's no reason to coin a new term at all, nor chasing this idea of using long German word as a replacement.

It works, but regression is broader. If I'm not mistaken, a regression can also happen without human intervention. Verschlimmbesserung is active. Someone actually tried something and made it worse.

How about "bloat". Something that doesn't need to be there, and it would be better if it wasn't, but it was typically added with some misguided "good intentions". Bloat.

This also applies to changing something. If it was perfect, and you changed it, and now it's not perfect anymore, then the work itself didn't need to happen, and was therefore bloat.

Most work is bloat. But we have tied continued existence to work (mostly -- we mistake work for value), so we've made infinite bloating appear mandatory.

As an aside, most of the human psychology (assumptions, beliefs etc.) is also bloat, and similarly benefits from debloating.

Bloat refers to quantitative apects like increased cpu/ram/storage requirements.

Article discusses qualitative aspects a la "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

Interesting. By this definition, a poorly chosen algorithm is also "bloat", which doesn't seem right to me.

I see bloat mostly as "unnecessary dependencies." Things which, if you removed them, the product would improve.

e.g. importing a whole library for what could have been a simple function.

If something justifies its "weight", then it's not bloat. It's functional.

But there's also "feature bloat." If a feature or change doesn't need to exist, or makes things worse, then it's bloat. If you removed it, the project would improve.

I prefer “misprovement”, as in “misfeature”.

We've misunderestimated you.

Similar, when you get an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time, I've proposed "bonalty": bonus + penalty.

“wrongbetterment”

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