An old Paul Graham essay on the word “Hacker” was posted to Hacker News today and generated a comment to the effect that the use of the word “Hacker” in the title may be part of what has kept the site from exploding in size. (As opposed to what one might think a website’s goals would be, this lack of explosion in size is typically seen by the site’s members, including myself, as a net positive.)
For one reason or another, this remark reminded me of the term “Shibboleth“, in its modern usage as any word or phrase that can be used to identify members of a group.
That is, you can tell in an instant someone’s membership or non-membership in a community like Hacker News by how they use or perceive the term.
This is not intended to be an earth-shattering observation, just a parallel that occurred to me.
Does it count as a shibboleth if you cannot actually distinguish between the groups by the word, only by their understanding of it's meaning?
Interesting, all the same. :)
That's a great point. The traditional “Shibboleth” would render group membership obvious simply by it's pronunciation, even in the more modern sense by it's mere use.
That said, in using of the term “hacker”, it's seldom takes very long to see in which sense the speaker/writer is using it, so if not a shibboleth, it seems quite close. A litmus test, perhaps, but shibboleth just sounds far cooler. ;-)
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