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/lit/ - Literature

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15145457 No.15145457 [Reply] [Original]

>retroactively refutes you

>> No.15145694
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15145694

>retroactively refutes himself and everyone else

>> No.15145779

>>15145457

Why does /lit/ keep writing "retroactively" when what it really means to say is "pre-emptively"? I thought you people were supposed to be smart and good with language.

DO NOT SAY: "that's how it's used in law", because a statement of this kind confounds cause and effect and betrays a misunderstanding of language. Consider the case of an ex-post-facto law. The law, WHICH IS FURTHER ALONG IN THE FUTURE, is the instrument which RETROACTIVELY criminalizes actions which occurred in the past, before the law was passed. The thing in the future/present has a retroactive effect upon the thing in the past. The sense in which /lit/ commonly uses "retroactively", to refer to a past thinker who anticipated a future thinker's idea (commonly: refuting it ahead of time) is a misunderstanding of the word itself.

Nor is it legitimate to observe the roots, retro: back, behind, before, action: action. The word means a thing having action upon that in the past, not: a thing past, or behind, which acts upon the future, which is the incorrect sense in which /lit/ has been using the word these past few months.

>> No.15145836

>>15145779
It's a meme that was purportedly started with guenonfag.
The version of the story I read was that guenonfag is ESL, so he confused the meaning of retroactive with preemptive. It sounds almost correct but kind of goofy, so it stuck and now it's all over the place.
Other versions say he himself tried to make it a meme when it was pointed out that he wasn't using the word correctly.

>> No.15145954
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15145954

>>15145836
>Other versions say he himself tried to make it a meme when it was pointed out that he wasn't using the word correctly.

Pic related, he tried to force it as a meme or just kept repeating it for a few months without it getting noticed. Only when people laughed at him he doubled it down and acted like it was a "thing."

>> No.15145959

>>15145779
From guenonfag, forced or not.

>> No.15145963
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15145963

>>15145457

>> No.15145988

>>15145954
>>15145959

Good. So now that we have two people who apparently have a good faith understanding of why the usage is wrong, please work with me to correct it in the future.

>> No.15146020

>>15145988
It’s a meme clickbait format, so it’s a lost cause at this point. Now it basically means “this guy did it right and all those others are obsolete or fundamentally incorrect”.

If they use it earnestly in an actual paragraph I’ll call it out, but how OP does it I’d consider myself a pedant dice it has a specific in group meaning now.

>> No.15146050

>>15145988
people tried to correct him and he replied by spamming it from then on out of spite

>> No.15146085

>>15145988
its too late , the meaning has been changed that is the nature of languages

>> No.15146092

>>15145954
ah, it's amazing how funny that looks in retrospect to how cringe and annoying it was back then. im almost nostalgic for the beginnings of guenonspam. you could almost say that guenonposting has become retroactively based

>> No.15146113

>>15146050

All the good-faith posting is heartening, happy to hear that it was called out before (I don't give a shit about the current meme hence my ignorance of origin story). The meaning is subtly close to the other sense though, hence traction. You >>15146085 have a point.

>> No.15146153

>>15146092
>you could almost say that guenonposting has become retroactively based

kek, nicely done anon

>> No.15146168

Hello, I see that I have intruded upon one of my fan-club discussions

>> No.15146179

>>15146168
Welcome friend.

>> No.15146200

>>15146179
I'd normally love to stay and chat but I'm afraid it's my bedtime and that I'll have to bid you adieu

>> No.15146210

>>15146200
Thanks for not posting a dozen threads a day this week. Remember, as long as you have genuine discussions people will be fine with it.