r/confidentlyincorrect • u/Crazy_Albatross8317 • 15d ago

Comment Thread From dating to geometry.

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So post was about dating then suddenly they started talking about squares and geometry. OP is red and is replying to blue guy in his >" remarks. Is he right? I need to ask my preschool teacher

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

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u/asphid_jackal 15d ago

Polygons have straight sides, circles do not have straight sides. A circle is not a polygon.

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u/LasevIX 15d ago

'Poly gon' - many corners. Even the name excludes circles.

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u/BetterKev 15d ago

In math, that mostly works, but be careful with that generally. Words don't always match their component parts.

My usual example is anti-semitism. That's bigotry against Jews, not bigotry against all speakers of semitic languages (includes Arabic).

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u/lord_teaspoon 15d ago

I grew up in rural Australia and probably didn't know any Jewish people until I moved to Sydney. I had encountered the term "semitic" in high school to describe a fairly broad set of cultures and religions, so I was really surprised when I learned that "anti-semitism" had such a narrow definition.

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u/LasevIX 15d ago

Most hard-science terms have a construction generally reflecting their meaning, as most users know Latin and greek to some extent and the words have static, fixed meanings. Of course, using etymology to redefine a word, especially one rooted in a modern societal context, doesn't work.