Well, they think words like "amnesty" and "socialism" are derogatory too, so I'm hardly going to follow their language usage tips.

That's because you can recognize the horse by sight.

Who ever said that Central America is a continent? It's a region with geographical and cultural commonalities, like Asia Minor or North Africa. And I've never heard it used in a derogatory manner.

"Cloud-based" datacenters? So, what, these drives wouldn't be any good for the datacenter in the basement with no internet connection?

The Federation of American Scientists argues that the high accuracy and low destructive settings means military commanders might press to use the bomb in an attack, knowing the radioactive fallout and collateral damage would be limited.

Aren't fallout and collateral damage the main problems people have with nuclear weapons? Without those factors The Bomb wouldn't have that enormous stigma attached to it, it would be just another bomb, albeit larger. Since the Cold War is over, and since everyone involved knows that smaller tactical nukes exist, there's no reason that the response to any and all non-testing nuclear explosion has to be full-on empty the silos.

The forces pushing the “evolution” (another word you’re misusing) of language one way or another are all human. I am a human, and I am pushing in the direction I see fit. If your best argument is “but everyone’s sayin it!” then I shouldn’t have to push too hard.

And you can fuck off if you don’t like people correcting your misusage. You are wrong. Just because a lot of other people are wrong along with you doesn’t make you less wrong, it just makes you less uniquely wrong.

There are plenty of phrases meaning “brings up the question,” “asks the question,” “leads me to ask,” etc. There are not many for “making an unspoken assumption,” so by appropriating a phrase that means one thing to mean another (for which there are ample alternatives) you are reducing the utility of language, not enriching it.

That’s the point. “Shall” is a legal term, the inclusion of which makes the document potentially legally-binding, which would mean the Senate has to ratify it.

> Can someone please tell lawmakers that this is a solved problem?

It’s a feature, not a bug. If all the commits are made by the Acting Chief Typist under orders from various other authorities, the identity of the actual contributor can be kept confidential, and it provides deniability to be able to blame the A.C.T.’s fumblefingers when slips like this one get noticed.

If only it were a joke.

> "Japan has resumed its controversial lethal research whaling because it wants to determine how many minke whales can be harvested sustainably”

Japan’s rep is pretty much paraphrasing Pratchett’s line right there.

> Except that's actually the OPPOSITE of the meaning of the term. A Shibboleth is used to identify members who belong to a group.

That’s the same thing. If you're identifying group members, you are also identifying group nonmembers.

Dr. Horrible’s was pretty good though.

That's not an "online purchase" though. That's an online agreement to make a traditional offline transaction.

> Who runs Apache any more? Every serious Linux webserver is running Nginx now.

I don’t know if you’re trying to start another "BSD Is Dying" thing but

http://news.netcraft.com/archi...

Nginx is certainly making headway but it's still only half Apache's market share of the million busiest sites, and 30% among all active sites.

They're not really backronyms, as the drafters didn't say "We're calling this HANGUP, now go find a phrase that could stand for!" If staffers had come up with a better title that abbreviated to DIALTONE or NOCALLS they'd have gone with that. The military does the same thing, but they're far more apt to drop or include letters to make an appropriately military-sounding word. It's probably a pretty fun process! And you have to admit this one is better than most; the title isn't a tortured mess. They could have even done Phonecalls as one word so as not to cheat.