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throw0101c 2 days ago

>> It doesn't matter. "kilo" means 1000. People are free to use it wrong if they wish.

> All words are made up.

Yes, and the made up words of kilo and kibi were given specific definitions by the people who made them up:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix

> […] as long as both parties understand and are consistent in their usage to each other.

And if they don't? What happens then?

Perhaps it would be easier to use the words definitions as they are set up in standards and regulations so context is less of an issue.

* https://xkcd.com/1860/

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mr_toad 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Yes, and the made up words of kilo and kibi were given specific definitions by the people who made them up

Kilo was generally understood to mean one thousand long before it was adopted by a standards committee. I know the French love to try and prescribe the use of language, but in most of the world words just mean what people generally understand them to mean; and that meaning can change.

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timschmidt 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Yes, and the made up words of kilo and kibi were given specific definitions by the people who made them up

Good for them. People make up their own definitions for words all the time. Some of those people even try to get others to adopt their definition. Very few are ever successful. Because language is about communicating shared meaning. And there is a great deal of cultural inertia behind the kilo = 2^10 definition in computer science and adjacent fields.

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moi2388 2 days ago | parent [-]

That also makes your comment unreadable, no idea what the definition of any word in your comment means anymore.

Can’t use a dictionary, those bastards try to get us to adopt their definitions.

	▲	timschmidt a day ago \| parent [-]
		This is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum Inability to communicate isn't what we observe because as I already stated, meaning is shared. Dictionaries are one way shared meaning can be developed, as are textbooks, software source codes, circuits, documentation, and any other artifact which links the observable with language. All of that being collectively labeled culture. The mass of which I analogized with inertia so as to avoid oversimplifications like yours. My point is that one person's definition does not a culture, make. And that adoption of new word definitions is inherently a group cultural activity which requires time, effort, and the willingness of the group to participate. People must be convinced the change is an improvement on some axis. Dictation of a definition from on high is as likely to result in the word meaning the exact opposite in popular usage as not. Your comment seems to miss any understanding or acknowledgement that a language is a living thing, owned by the people who speak it, and useful for speaking about the things which matter most to them. That credible dictionaries generally don't accept words or definitions until widespread use can be demonstrated. It seems like some of us really want human language to work like rule-based computer languages. Or think they already do. But all human languages come free with a human in the loop, not a rules engine.

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tombert 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think that the xkcd is relevant here, because I'm arguing that both parties know what the other is talking about. I haven't implicitly changed the definition because most people assume that kilobyte is 1024 bytes. Yeah, sure, it's "wrong" in some sense, but language is about communicating ideas between two people; if the communication is successful than the word is "correct".