Asklemmy

43989 readers

1328 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

147

What's a word you've spent a long time not using right? (lemm.ee)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

230 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Just recently I was in a conversation with a number of UK mainlanders and we had a debate over what "tories" meant, apparently disproportionately ordinarily it refers to a political party and it's not usual to use it as short for "territories" as I've used it (according to how the debate ended, it was half and half between them). And once again I'm reminded of how people feel to look back at their usage of a word/phrase over the years and cringe.

More tragically, me and a friend were embarrassed once upon realizing everyone was confusing "encephalitis" with "hydrocephalus" when talking to someone about their kid with hydrocephalus. Awkward because encephalitis is caused by HIV.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] someguy3 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

...discussions are discussions. They don't need to lead somewhere for the discussion to happen, ie the discussion to be brought to the table.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're describing a conversation, not a discussion. A conversation can be had for no other purpose than to have it.

A discussion has an objective, a purpose. A discussion ended without achieving that purpose has been "tabled": it has been left on the table, at least for the time being, while the participants divert attention to more pressing issues.

My purpose in this discussion is to convince you that "tabled" can be logically used in the manner I described. As you do not seem receptive to that concept, I'm going to table this discussion and continue with my day.

[–] someguy3 1 points 11 months ago

It’s not yet a law, or part of a contract. While it is on the table, it is nothing more

It does not need to become law, it does not need to be part of a contract for it to be discussed or brought to the table, aka tabled. You know to be brought under discussion or consideration.

You're oddly adversarial about this, so cheers.