[throwanem]

Crowley is full of shit.

By this definition a hammer is a magical or "magickal" implement - the K was Crowley's invention, so that he could trademark it - which of course can be true if someone decides as much, but the only reason to couch such trivia in the pettifogging obscurity Crowley favored is because doing so will help you nail bored young socialites, an activity which Crowley also famously favored. (Gotta watch out for that neurosyphilis! What a shame he never did.)

Try thinking for yourself, instead.

[notpachet]

> pettifogging

Off-topic but just wanted to thank you for teaching me a new word. I try to always reply to HN comments that expand my vocabulary.

[sunrunner]

Is pettifogging some kind of etymological parent of bikeshedding then?

[throwanem]

They're etymologically unrelated, "bikeshedding" having been coined in our field and our lifetime, but semantically not too far apart. The main difference I see is that pettifogging connotes an ulterior motive which the described activity serves to conceal, while bikeshedding explicitly denotes the service of no purpose save the burnishment of the bikeshedder's ego.

(The term "bikeshedding" is insufficiently defined, in that it implicitly excludes the social reasons always underlying human behavior, which is why I these days prefer the word I used. Honestly, having been away from it now something over a year, even the simple jargon of the field begins to take on a queasy pseudocolor in my mind, the stinking sinus-stinging yellow-green of a revolted gut revolting. Thinking back over the rattle of acronyms and half-words that used to shape my days comes to be like thinking back over times I have been feverishly ill. Perhaps for once in my life I am on the leading edge of something.)

[Slow_Hand]

Nice word.

I rue the day the IG reels crowd pick up on it and it becomes the "word du jour" that gets overused to the point of being intolerable. Right up there with "narcissist" and "gaslighting".

[Terr_]

The problem isn't so much overuse as misuse, as "gaslighting" gets thrown around for almost any kind of falsehood.

Another example would be "Ponzi scheme", which I've seen abused for any situation the speakers seems unsustainable, even when there isn't any records fraud.

[WJW]

For sure. Despite all the talking about "self-deification" and all that shit, they sure seem to care a lot about what society (and their imaginary demons) think about them.