| ▲ | mohamedkoubaa 17 hours ago |
| PSA: third world means non-aligned in the cold war. It's use in 2026 is meaningless at best. |
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| ▲ | Eueudhsbsj32 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The use and meaning of words shift over time. Today, third world just means less developed. |
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| ▲ | john_strinlai 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >It's use in 2026 is meaningless at best. not really. the word has evolved enough that dictionaries and wikipedia acknowledge the common-day usage of "underdeveloped" |
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| ▲ | mohamedkoubaa 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wikipedia and dictionaries are wrong. It has a different usage than "underdeveloped" and that usage at best doesn't have a clear meaning, and at worst does have a clear derogatory meaning | | |
| ▲ | john_strinlai 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | >Wikipedia and dictionaries are wrong. sorry, but no one is taking some random HN user's definition over established dictionaries on what a word means. perhaps you can convince enough people that the word will evolve into whatever you imagine it to mean, and then the dictionaries will be updated to match. | | |
| ▲ | mohamedkoubaa 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | The dictionary is an attempt at systematically defining the semantic meaning of language subject to cultural constraints in the same way that a writing system is an attempt at visually rendering a spoken language subject to technological constraints. I know from personal experience that the people who work on dictionaries have a less authoritative view about them than you do. | | |
| ▲ | john_strinlai 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | dictionaries and common usage (e.g. wikipedia, forums, news, etc.) are certainly more authoritative than a random person unilaterally deciding that a word has no meaning and declaring "dictionaries and wikipedia are wrong" if you poll 100 random english speakers and the majority come back saying that they have no idea what "third world" means, or say that the term is meaningless, i will concede and donate $1,000 to a charity of your choice. | | |
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| ▲ | funvill 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Today I learned something new. Thank you |
