I believe that when people write ‘tap out’ in comment sections, they are actually supposed to write ‘bow out’, in almost all cases I’ve read it.
I regularly see comment sections where someone, to indicate it’s going to be their last comment, writes that they’re ‘tapping out’ at this point. They rarely mean they’re conceding the point, I’m pretty sure they’re just respectfully ending their participation in the conversation. But that’s not the standard meaning of the phrase in the place that it comes from.
Here’s ChatGPT explaining the two phrases (emphasis added).
The phrase “tap out” originates from the world of combat sports, particularly Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and mixed martial arts (MMA). In these sports, a competitor signals submission or the desire to end a match by physically tapping their opponent, the mat, or even themselves. This act of tapping indicates that they can no longer continue the fight, either due to exhaustion, pain, or the risk of injury.
and
The phrase “bow out” means to gracefully or politely withdraw from a situation, activity, or role. It often implies a voluntary and dignified exit, often to avoid conflict or because it is the appropriate or respectful thing to do. The term can be used in various contexts, such as resigning from a job, ending participation in a project, or stepping down from a position of responsibility.
So I encourage any such people to change your usage accordingly!
As the person who suggested “bow out”, I now think “tap out” is also reasonably acceptable.
The older sense of “tap out” is “to run out of money at a gambling establishment”, which seems more similar to running out of time or energy budget for a thread, then signalling submission.
Probably it’s still worth avoiding the confusion by “bow”ing rather than “tap”ping.
Also, for more LessWrong discussion of the phrase along the martial arts lines, see the Tapping Out tag.
Oh interesting. I’m not convinced. I think it would make sense to say “I’m tapped out” if you mean it as an analogy to the running out of your budget version, like “I’m tapped out on energy for this thread”, which is not the same as “I’m tapping out of this debate, you got me”, and is also meaningfully different from the respectful “Thanks for the conversation, I’ll bow out with this comment”.
That’s understandable; personally I really like it when the spoken/written words literally mean what is being communicated even if the communication is successful without that.
In this case the term is a random idiom that only means the-particular-thing because some other group decided that it colloquially means-that-thing, and that feels about as arbitrary as us deciding it colloqially means some other thing. (which apparently already happened).
Like, in some cultures “flip the bird” means “give the middle finger” which means “fuck you” which means “I’m unhappy with you and want to express that”, but, that doesn’t mean all English speakers need to think “flip the bird” means that set of things,.
But, seems good for avoiding unnecessary miscommunications between cultures.
Not sure what you’re saying is a random idiom, but if you mean ‘tap out’ is about as random as ‘flip the bird’, then that seems wrong to me. “Flip the bird” sounds like a fairly random phrase, closer to the randomness of cockney rhyming slang where the literal meaning has no relation to the new meaning (e.g. to go ‘up the apple and stairs’ means to ‘go up the stairs’, just because it rhymes). “Tapping out” refers to literally tapping your combat partner, which itself is a very natural choice of protocol, because you often cannot speak while you are being choked, it is not a random choice of action nor is the description somehow random.
I believe that when people write ‘tap out’ in comment sections, they are actually supposed to write ‘bow out’, in almost all cases I’ve read it.
I regularly see comment sections where someone, to indicate it’s going to be their last comment, writes that they’re ‘tapping out’ at this point. They rarely mean they’re conceding the point, I’m pretty sure they’re just respectfully ending their participation in the conversation. But that’s not the standard meaning of the phrase in the place that it comes from.
Here’s ChatGPT explaining the two phrases (emphasis added).
and
So I encourage any such people to change your usage accordingly!
As the person who suggested “bow out”, I now think “tap out” is also reasonably acceptable.
The older sense of “tap out” is “to run out of money at a gambling establishment”, which seems more similar to running out of time or energy budget for a thread, then signalling submission.
Probably it’s still worth avoiding the confusion by “bow”ing rather than “tap”ping.
Also, for more LessWrong discussion of the phrase along the martial arts lines, see the Tapping Out tag.
Oh interesting. I’m not convinced. I think it would make sense to say “I’m tapped out” if you mean it as an analogy to the running out of your budget version, like “I’m tapped out on energy for this thread”, which is not the same as “I’m tapping out of this debate, you got me”, and is also meaningfully different from the respectful “Thanks for the conversation, I’ll bow out with this comment”.
This changed my mind (although only weakly, because I think in practice nobody seemed super confused about “tap-out”)
That’s understandable; personally I really like it when the spoken/written words literally mean what is being communicated even if the communication is successful without that.
In this case the term is a random idiom that only means the-particular-thing because some other group decided that it colloquially means-that-thing, and that feels about as arbitrary as us deciding it colloqially means some other thing. (which apparently already happened).
Like, in some cultures “flip the bird” means “give the middle finger” which means “fuck you” which means “I’m unhappy with you and want to express that”, but, that doesn’t mean all English speakers need to think “flip the bird” means that set of things,.
But, seems good for avoiding unnecessary miscommunications between cultures.
Not sure what you’re saying is a random idiom, but if you mean ‘tap out’ is about as random as ‘flip the bird’, then that seems wrong to me. “Flip the bird” sounds like a fairly random phrase, closer to the randomness of cockney rhyming slang where the literal meaning has no relation to the new meaning (e.g. to go ‘up the apple and stairs’ means to ‘go up the stairs’, just because it rhymes). “Tapping out” refers to literally tapping your combat partner, which itself is a very natural choice of protocol, because you often cannot speak while you are being choked, it is not a random choice of action nor is the description somehow random.
Yeah the fact that the idiom only really existed in this particular context and wasn’t random is fairly compelling.