← Back to context

Comment by adrian_b

3 hours ago

Someone has downvoted this, despite the fact that what I have written is not an opinion, but just facts.

Because I have seen on HN extremely frequently downvotes that just show that the downvoters are ignorant about what they downvote. I stopped a long time ago to downvote comments.

Now I either upvote when I agree and otherwise I write a comment explaining why I disagree.

It would have been better if others had followed such a policy.

Perhaps the downvoter had something to say about "cyan", but this is indeed only one example of a long list of Ancient Greek words that have been borrowed into English during the 19th and 20th century, but which are used with incorrect meanings. Most likely this is due to the fact that those who have introduced these words did not study the Ancient Greek language and they also did not consult anyone knowledgeable or any good dictionaries. Another example of this kind is "macro" used as an opposite for "micro", i.e. as "big", while the true opposite of "micro" is "mega" = "big", while "macro" means "long", the opposite of "short" ("brachy" in Ancient Greek).