Tell HN: Stop using "dropped" to mean "added"
I don't know what it is with people using the word "drop/dropped" to mean "add/added", when the latter will do fine. They don't respect the language. People think they're being cool when they're misusing the word, but they're not. Even LLMs have been picking up this bad habit.
"Dropped" has long had meaning in English, referring to a delivery. "I dropped it off at the shop". Hence the term a "dropbox" - aka a longtime term for a place you can receive deliveries.
The online parlance is obviously stretching that definition a bit thin - but using the term "drop" can contextually be more specific than simply saying something was "added" or "released".
I've personally never liked it. Defending it sounds like defending the "inflammable" thing. Yes there's historic reason for it but it's unpleasant.
Ye shouldst wayten un-tille thou hast y-seen what thei hath donne wyth th'other werdes of Englisshe.
Tis a travestye, for sothe.
I fall upon the floor, face contorted in uncontrollable guffaws!
https://www.amazon.com/Words-Move-English-Still-Literally/dp...
Yes, but this is not one of those words that is slightly changing in its meaning. Instead, it is flipping the meaning altogether. This misuse sabotages core boolean constructs of the language. Imagine if we lose the word "drop" to this trend. What then will we use to actually mean "drop"? Will they go after "delete" next to pretend to be cooler? Is nothing sacred?
No, nothing is sacred. I'll note the "literally" case in GP is arguably even more of a flip than drop.
The only way for a human language to stay the same is for people to stop speaking it, i.e. Latin - France has trouble keeping French the same, and English is the polar opposite with no ruling body and a history of katamari damacy-ing words from every other language.
Words can mean multiple things, and if there's enough of a gap a new word or usage will rise to fill its place.
Delete works, of course, and I think the opposite to "new feature just dropped" in tech circles is "killed" or "killed off", as in killedbygoogle.com
Boolean constructs are sacred. This includes words like "yes", "no", "true", and "false". Without these holding on to their meaning, the language, the culture, and civilization will fall apart. "Dropped" is very close to them. "Delete" works for now, but give it a century, and we could lose it too because the click-generating hipsters are always on the lookout for new words to exploit.
Boolean constructs certainly aren't sacred, and we have a million synonyms for both yes and no should the need arise.
Civilization will certainly not fall apart if language changes again, as it has for the entire history of spoken language - notably, Old English would be unintelligible to most of us now and civilization is working just fine. I just learned looking this up that Early English had a 4-form system consisting of yea/nae/yes/no ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_and_no#The_Early_English_f... ), which is fascinating, and we appear to be doing just fine without yea and nae nowadays.
Anyway, I'll note that release and drop are near-synonyms if you're talking about a physical object, so their similar use for features etc isn't wild at all, and is well established in culture (drop an album, etc), so I don't think this is nearly as big a change (like yes->no would be) as you think.
There is no universe in which release and drop are near synonyms. They're used as such only by dorks, click optimizers, and SEO scammers.
There also is no inhabited universe in which the words yes and no can survive being flipped in their meaning, because an attempt at such a flip will result in total collapse, in a universe without life.
> There is no universe in which release and drop are near synonyms
Among several slang definitions for "drop", Oxford English Dictionary includes "To release or make available" with multiple examples going back to 1988: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/drop_v?tab=meaning_and_use#60...
> They're used as such only by dorks, click optimizers, and SEO scammers.
That's clearly not true.
Everyone has their pet peeves, but this is a ridiculous thing to post a "Tell HN" about.
If I'm holding a ball in my hand and then open my fingers and the ball is pulled by gravity to the floor:
Did I release the ball from my hand?
Did I drop the ball?
"Yeah, yeah." in a sarcastic tone of voice means "no". Also see the opposite meanings of "yeah, nah" and "nah, yeah" in Midwestern US English. Or the Japanese who will say "yes" out of politeness while meaning "no" which you should be able to intuit from context. Etc.
There are better answers in the linked book. :)
But no, nothing is sacred. Not only that, from a historical perspective, the current pace of language change is shockingly slow because of the impact of media. It would not be at all unusual for a word like drop to move entirely to a new metaphorical meaning causing other words to have to fill in the gap. In German, you "let fall" something. Even if anything was sacred, "drop" would be far, far from sacred. It is very easy to replace.
(The closest thing to sacred is words for familiar, every day objects and people. "Mama" is pretty nearly universal, for example. But even so, we literally don't even know where the word "dog" came from, so no, nothing is sacred.)
There are many many examples if you search (or even better, read the book!), but here are a few:
"silly" originally meant something more like "blessed"
"fear" meant "danger", referring to a thing feared, not the feeling
"nice" meant "foolish" and literally comes from roots mean "not knowing"
This kind of change in meaning is very, very normal. This is just how language works. I really think you will enjoy the book. The author is very easy to read and covers a ton of linguistic ground.
You might be standing on a sinking boat. Even Google calls some of their releases "feature drops".
new slang just dropped about twenty years ago baby drops the mic
Slang is the free expression of thought and no, there are no rules, and no, nothing is sacred. That is the only way language works while avoiding dehumanization for the people employing it to express themselves.
In other words, "Tell HN poster: No, and, by the way, language is not yours to control"
Dropped doesn’t mean added: it means released.
But if Microsoft drops support for old PCs, it means removed; de-released. That's why overloading words is a bad idea and should be resisted.
"The player was dropped and released from his contract."
Dropped == released
"Released" is indeed one implied meaning of it, perhaps the main one, but not the only one. I have witnessed "dropped" being used in diverse contexts to mean "added", and it's getting worse.
I can't think of a single example where dropped means added.
Can you provide some examples? I can’t really think of the usage you’re describing, but it might be that just haven’t noticed.
I have to drop the news that just dropped into my lap that a new album just dropped
Stop telling people to stop doing something.
That's what you're doing.
Yo, fam! New invalid Tell HN just dropped! :-O
Imagine the repo nightmare. `Drop opts parameter for system config`, `Drop routes for navigation`, `Update tests with dropped opts` etc
Like “dropped the bass” to mean add bass to music? It “new album just dropped?”
In tech circles, it's like the latter: "dropped new feature/release" to mean "added new feature/release".
If you go to give someone something, do you drop it off or add it to their inventory?
I kid, of course :)
Reminds me of when fifteen years ago, someone said “New definition of dropped just dropped!”
Wait till you hear about kids using the word bad to describe good.
It's not a mistake. It's designed to be ambiguous at best and more often than not misleading. It makes you rage, it makes you click, it engages. Which is what makes money. Just note how many popular posts here and on Reddit have subtle "I made an oopsie" mistakes. It's deliberate.
Sometimes people are just talking. There's no deliberate attempt to mislead built inherently into saying you "dropped a new feature."