[Grimm1]

Unfortunately language isn't a static thing and is somewhat defined by the dominant usage of something over time (unless you're in the rare country that has fully prescriptive language). I had been using crypto as shorthand for cryptography for a long time but cryptocurrency quickly subsumed that. If I talk to any of my non technical friends, and even technical friends who don't touch cryptography, crypto = cryptocurrency. I think the war is lost here.

[giantrobot]

The bigger problem is for non-technical users "cryptography" and "cryptocurrency" now sound interchangeable. So now you can't have a conversation about cryptography without explaining how it's distinct from the concept of cryptocurrency and that you're not talking about Bitcoin.

While most people aren't talking to their non-technical friends and family about cryptography too often, the co-opting of "crypto" is problematic for companies. They now have to explain to lay people why a new phone isn't pumping out Bitcoin when it was advertised as having strong cryptography. It's going to also be super problematic when politicians start talking about "crypto" regulation and we're having to fight battles over the legality of cryptography again. I don't think my old RSA-as-one-liner still fits.

[AnthonyMouse]

The worst part is that there is already another word for cryptocurrency. Blockchain. It has the same number of syllables as "crypto" and isn't ambiguous.

The cynic in me says they did it on purpose, because it's widely agreed by non-morons that cryptography is good and important and people wanted to associate their controversial shitcoins with that good and important thing.

[q-big]

> The worst part is that there is already another word for cryptocurrency. Blockchain.

There do exist cryptocurrencies that are not based on a blockchain. For example, Iota is based on a tangle, which the creators of Iota claim is better suited for their intended IoT applications than a blockchain.

Or more centralized cryptocurrencies, for example eCash, which was invented 1983 by David Chaum:

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecash

[AnthonyMouse]

"Centralized cryptocurrency" already has its own word. Banking.

Banking would be better if it worked like eCash, but it would still not be a problem to not have a single word that encompasses both this and Bitcoin, since they are actually two different things.

[Grimm1]

I talk about encryption which cuts the confusion nicely even if it isn't a perfect replacement but I find lay people don't care about the general field of cryptography they care about privacy and from that, encryption. I've been able to get a few people onto signal for instance by going that route.

[blueflow]

People will also deny that Wine is an emulator, and people will also claim that whatever tinc does is not an VPN because it doesnt hide your IP when watching porn. My coworker denied DOS is an operating system because it doesn't have virtual memory and paging.

all nonsense ... People generally aren't good with subtle differences, i guess. I've given up explaining it to people.

[tryauuum]

This made me question my belief that DOS is an operating system. If it cannot run programs with (fake) parallelism and doesn't have virtual memory...

[zaat]

Well, if it isn't operating system, than what is it exactly?

[hdjjhhvvhga]

A good base to develop an RTOS[0] for example with RTKernel[1] on some hardware.

[0] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Embedded_Systems/Common_RTOS/D...

[1] http://www.on-time.com/rtkernel-dos.htm

[giantrobot]

A runtime library.

[capableweb]

> People will also deny that Wine is an emulator

Of course they will, it's even in the name!

Wine Is Not an Emulator

[blueflow]

Assuming you are not being sarcastic:

Wine is imitating the windows libary interface. It literally is an emulator: "To strive to equal or excel, especially through imitation".

Wine devs had to to the renaming because people incorrectly read it as "it runs in a virtual machine" for no reason.

[zaat]

Well, the project's website clearly isn't with agreement with you.

> Wine (originally an acronym for "Wine Is Not an Emulator")

https://www.winehq.org/about

[blueflow]

[deleted: sick of arguing as explained in grandparent]

[10000truths]

So... it's a WinAPI emulator?

[JohnFen]

I agree, it's already lost.

The question then becomes -- since "crypto" no longer means "cryptography" -- what new shorthand term do we use?

[throwvirtever]

You abandon the shorthand altogether, so that "cryptography" and "cryptocurrency" are distinguished the same way that "astronomy" and "astrology" are.

[plorkyeran]

Which isn't a great place to be, as lay people confuse the two all the time.

[RobertRoberts]

I often confused astrology/astronomy as a child... but not as an adult.

Maybe some things simply can't be solved without education & maturity?

[OJFord]

Frankly, you're reading HN, you can cope with it; a lot of people can't, and do confuse them as adults.

An extreme example - there was a paediatrician murdered (? At least something severe happened) in the UK after a newspaper published his name and occupation in connection with some more mundane story, and some idiot saw 'paed' and assumed all words with that prefix mean the same bad thing, or whatever.

Many people can't reliably tell you whether they bought something in a shop, or brought it home from a friend who gifted it to them.

[RobertRoberts]

Lack of intelligence and/or education can't be solved by modifying our language.

[wittycardio]

A very appropriate analogy

[rsj_hn]

I prefer to just keep using "crypto" and confuse the outsiders with my own crypto-jargon

[JohnFen]

This is actually my personal approach, because I'm a curmudgeon. If I'm talking about cryptography, I say "crypto". If I'm talking about cryptocurrency, I say "cryptocurrency".

[iamcurious]

Did you meant cryptic-jargon?

[snak]

At least "cryptos" in plural is clearly for crypto currencies (I don't think anyone uses "cryptographies").

[kube-system]

Just "crypto". Many words have multiple meanings, and we use context to figure it out.

[redwood]

"encryption"

[tatersolid]

Signatures, hash functions, message authentication codes, zero-knowledge proofs, authentication, etc. are all part of cryptography. They’re not “encryption” no matter how hard you try to stretch that word’s definition.

[jjice]

Mentioning a cryptography course I took in uni as 'crypto' always gets confused looks as to why we had a cryptocurrency course.