In the 1930s, Germans (and their European neighbours) considered themselves to be more enlightened and culturally sophisticated – despite the political instability and economic turmoil that plagued the Weimar republic (war reparation debt, hyper-inflation, Great Depression).
There are contemporary people who said the country in most danger of falling for communism is Germany, while Russia was seen to be in danger of turning fascist.
History has this weird thing of becoming invisible to many of the actors within it. I guess it takes a certain kind of mind (or is it just education?) to be the lobster that noticing the water becoming warmer. Without any frame of reference it could be train moving, or the landscape — those with some degree of historic education have some absolute frame of reference at least.
Here’s what Richard Stallman had to say about these terms in his 1996 essay published in “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard, M. Stallman”¹:
Content
> If you want to describe a feeling of comfort and satisfaction, by all means say “content,” but using it to describe written and other works of authorship embodies a specific attitude towards those works: that they are an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money. In effect, it treats the works themselves with disrespect.
> Those who use this term are often the publishers that push for increased copyright power in the name of the authors (“creators,” as they say) of the works. The term “content” reveals what they really feel.
> As long as other people use the term “content provider,” political dissidents can well call themselves “malcontent providers.”
Creator
> The term “creator” as applied to authors implicitly compares them to a deity (“the creator”). The term is used by publishers to elevate the authors’ moral stature above that of ordinary people, to justify increased copyright power that the publishers can exercise in the name of the authors.
Note: I have a paper copy of this book at home but I found very hard to find this text on the web via Duck Duck Go or Google. Thankfully, the Wikipedia article had links to the original.
Since RMS said it, I have no doubt that it reflects the general consensus of people on HN, but in general terms it seems a bit out of touch with reality. No one actually uses the term "creator" to imply some elevated divine right to copyright power, nor does "content" imply " an interchangeable commodity whose purpose is to fill a box and make money". This isn't how people think or act or use this language in the real world.
I think that’s his own particular sense of humour coming through. I don’t mind such idiosyncrasies in his writing as I know to expect it but I would agree that it’s not the best way of communicating to appeal to a mass audience (I’m upvoting your comment as it seems like you’re being unfairly downvoted). While RMS is a great thinker, he’s not the best spokesperson for the Free Software Foundation.
One of the big problems with how easy it is to generate “content” is that the good stuff easily gets lost among the deluge of dross. Also, there’s no shortage of good quality content being produced so even if you find something good, it may not be the right time for that person.
E.g., I checked your Hacker News submissions and found your platform via your Show HN submission.¹ As someone interested in philosophy and the concepts of stoicism, it looks good but unfortunately I’m too busy at the moment and don’t have enough time to engage with it properly so I’ve bookmarked it to come back to it later.
I’m not a music producer or drummer (just a beginner guitarist interested in how other music is made) but I think this is great. I noticed a typo when you mouse-over the CY, cymbal is mis-spelled with an extra ‘l’).
Off-topic; it’s great to see a good old-fashioned XHTML web page – with a Strict doctype to boot! I remember hand-crafting websites using XHTML (at first Transitional, then Strict) using Server Side Includes as the only backend technology and being proud at how semantic and human-readable the source code was. The markup on this page is elegant, clear and readable while the rendered XHTML is both accessible and responsive.
Harris and Harrison are other examples of this kind of surname.
In Dublin, the bus routes are bilingual and a couple of years ago I noticed that the Irish translation of Harristown is Baile Anraí¹. When I first saw “Baile Anraí” as the destination for a passing bus, I wondered where Henry’s Town might be. I then figured that Henry and Harris must be variations of the same name and that Anraí is the Irish version of both names.
Sure enough, when I check this now, Wikipedia concurs². The article it cites states that Harry is the “Medieval English form of Henry. In modern times it is used as a diminutive of both Henry and names beginning with Har.”³
The surname Hanks may also derive from the use of Hank as a diminutive of Henry⁴
If you read the article instead of just the headline, you will find that almost all the names discussed are names people do still have. Jack, Dick, Bob, Nick, Bill, Robin, etc. are nicknames specifically called out in the article.
The article does finish with Hob, Daw, Wat, and Gib. But most of the names highlighted are ones that are still in use. (I personally also have found that a lot of people don't realize Harry is a nickname for Henry, like anyone who wasn't alive for JFK doesn't know "Jack" is "John")
> a lot of people don't realize Harry is a nickname
Does no one know Shakespeare any more?
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
I had actually read Henry IV, Part 1 in school many decades ago but in that play the young prince Henry was (mostly) called Hal – not to be confused with his opponent, Henry Percy, better known as Harry Hotspur.
Off-topic: I wonder if this the first recorded use of the phrase “the game’s afoot”?
It's actually even more relevant here than it appears, in that the rest of the comment is true: half the article really is about nicknames that people do still use, so there was no reason for the author to object. But that point is lost thanks to the snark.
The first part of the article explains the pattern, where a nickname becomes a patronymic surname, using familiar examples.
This sets up the main point, which is that the pattern holds so reliably that when you meet a patronymic surname you can often infer the existence of a nickname, even when it's one you don't recongize.
You seem to be criticizing someone for not having read an article he wrote himself. Not only is this general class of complaint specifically forbidden by the site policy here, it represents a sort of combination of incompetence and malice that I find extremely distasteful. I doubt I am alone in this.
I was thinking along the lines that these days “Harry” is (mostly¹) a stand-alone name and no longer used as a nickname for Henry (and this was something I only realised in the past couple of years).
Anyhow, I really enjoyed the article and learning about the origins of surnames, e.g., I didn’t know that “Peters” should be understood to be in the genitive case and I’d never have associated the surname Dixon with being “Richard’s son” – even though I’m familiar with Dick as a nickname for Richard.
¹ Other commentators have pointed out that Prince Harry was actually christened as Henry.
Here’s another interesting connection: the Italian forename Enzo is a derivative of the German name Heinz, which is a diminutive of Heinrich and cognate of the given name Henry.
I've now checked, and it was originally a form of Henry, but can now also be a diminutive form of any name beginning with Har... So we're both right : - )
I’m no AWK expert but I know just enough to tell when it’s the right tool for a particular job. Most pipelines consisting of `grep`, `sed` and `cut` commands can be replaced with a single AWK command. In this case:
stat / | awk '/Birth:/ { print $2; }'
For the line containing the `Birth:` regex, print the second field (by default, fields are delimited by spaces). Other lines that don’t match the regex are ignored.
1. Step 1
2. ???
3. ???
4. Profit!
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/profit
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