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Comment by __z | Hacker News Reader

>“In the past, people thought of offenders as impulsive, indiscriminate, opportunistic – they didn’t think they were very clever because they usually aren’t well educated,”

There's two categories of burglars: those that are clever and those who actually are impulsive, indiscriminate, and opportunistic. To group them all together is really untrue else "crimes of opportunity" wouldn't be a thing.. I've seen cases of some really dumb and obviously unplanned burglaries - including the time my own house was burglarized. I've seen even dumber petty thefts - those that were impulsive, indiscriminate, opportunistic to a T. Example: a friend of mine had a bottle of Gatorade stolen from her car but the robber left the cash in the (unlocked) glove compartment.

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I've had a car window broken to steal a stereo that on a good day would have brought $5. Basic smash and grab in a bad neighborhood. I was more pissed at the screwdriver marks on the paint than losing the stereo.

OTOH, a friend of mine had her car broken into around the same time in the mid-90's and the factory radio was stolen professionally. The thief only broke the tiny side quarter window and then reached in to open the door. It was a very neat, precise theft. All the screws and trim were in a tidy pile on the driver's seat. The stereo was carefully extracted with no damage to the dashboard. The thief quite clearly took his time to do this. She speculated that he probably saw them get out of the car and go into her friend's house where there was a party so he knew he had time.

The verb is (traditionally) to burgle. When I see 'burglarize' I can't help wondering where it will all end.

burgle -> burglar -> burglarize -> burglarizer -> burglarizerize -> burglarizerizer -> ... ?

(Yes, this is off-topic pedantry; I can't help myself; sorry).

Edit: corrected my assertion that burglar comes from burgle.

No, no it's not. The word "burgle" is back-formed from "burglar".

Were it otherwise, we would write "burgler".

Pedant, correct thyself: the first citation for "burglarize" in the OED is 1871, and the first citation for "burgle" is ... 1872.

(The first definition for "burglarize" in the OED is "To rob burglariously", which is wonderful. For "burgle" they note that it's "a back-formation < burglar n., of very recent appearance, though English Law Latin had a verb burgulare of same meaning. Orig. colloq. or humorous." They define it too using the adverb "burglariously".)

>The verb is (traditionally) to burgle.

No it isn't. Not where I'm from, I've never heard of the word "burgle."

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=burgle

http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/h/hobbit-script-t...

> Well, you are the burglar. Go down and burgle something.

Well, I say avoision.

Language changes and adapts with time and what is correct can change in years and even months.

If the vast majority of people say burglarize - then that is correct. The purpose of language is communicating information - and if the information is being communicated in a manner that most people can agree on the meaning of the information; then the language is doing its job.

This is why you can google something on Yahoo. The 'official' (and recent) definition specifies the Google search engine, but many people use the word "google" as a synonym for "search".

I love getting into arguments with people who treat their dictionaries like a religious text then using words with modern meanings that have nothing to do with their etymology.

This is why you can google something on Yahoo.

I'm not sure about that. Using 'hoovering' as a synonym for vacuuming is really common at home. But Google as a brand is so strong that I'm not convinced people really disassociate the verb from the search engine.

That's so funny! Around here people never say "I'm going to hoover the floor" they say "I am going to bissell the floor!!" Bissell must have a greater market share around here!

Around where? Is this in an entire community, or merely your family group? I've never heard the name used like that before, and find it hard to believe it would displace 'Hoover' as a colloquialism. Also, aren't Bissel devices mechanical sweepers, not vacuum cleaners?

Entire community - I dont personally say it but I hear others. Bissell does makes vacuums.

You'd be surprised.

For English, this is absolutely true. (I believe some other languages are, at least officially, less fluid -- such as French, policed by the Academie Francaise).

And it does turn out, it seems, that 'burglarize' is legit (and I failed to do my homework). But I still dislike it intensely: why use more syllables/more letters when you could use fewer with exactly the same meaning? (I also have a preference, albeit weaker, for oriented over orientated, and so on).

Oh, just because the Academie Francaise has some power de jure, doesn't mean that they regulate French language (as spoken by the French) de facto.

Btw, you might like http://verben.texttheater.net/Englisch (and if you know German, the rest of their stuff is great, too).

Can we just agree that if you are in the US feel free to add -ize to anything as part of a greater trend to verb every word (although would you 'verb' a word or would you 'verbize' it?) If you are from a non-us english speaking country (commonwealth mostly) and went through school before the internet blurred languages then burgled will be more familiar

I thought 'burgle' was British usage and 'burglarize' American.

That's true of most anti-social behavior (as you acknowledge with "crimes of opportunity"), notably cheating.

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