I agree that rationalist has baggage in the minds of most people, and it evokes rationalization and related antithetical concepts for many.
If Less Wrong expands the community and shapes future discussions on rationalist topics in the way that I expect it to, this might just be the last good time to coin a new term.
It would be clear from context which was intended. English has many homophones, and they don’t seem to cause much difficulty. Is that not your experience with the many existing homophones?
I wouldn’t say that English has ‘many’ homophones. And yes, I think they’re generally very annoying, when they can be used as the same part of speech. There isn’t much confusion between ‘led’ (past tense of ‘to lead’) and ‘lead’ (the heavy metal). However, it always takes a moment to catch up when someone uses ‘right’ as a verb, and I imagine ‘righter’ would be even worse, especially as an obscure jargon term.
We are getting a bit off-topic, so this is my last post in this thread.
I’d argue that this constitutes many (note the restrictions too, which result in excluded entries).
With regard to how noticeable homophones are, it feels to me like there is a priming effect due to the context, which results in the sense that was intended being obvious and coming to mind effortlessly. For example, cents and sense sound the same in some dialects, but I doubt many would even consider interpreting the sound in question as cents if they heard the previous sentence spoken. I think most homophones are like that, most of the time, and that it usually takes effort to even notice them, as when trying to think of a pun. I will grant you though that righter and writer are more alike in terms of their meaning, and thus easier to confuse, but I just wouldn’t consider that sufficient reason to not even consider it as an option.
Truthers is already used for people who think Bush was behind 9/11. Righters isn’t used for anything that I know of, but sounds like it means “people who think they’re right all the time”, which was one of the problems with “rationalist”. It also sounds like it could mean “right-wingers” or “people who believe in rights”.
What is your dialect? In my dialect (Californian American), neither word has much of a connotation at all. They both have a vague feel of something I might read in a modern science fiction book talking about different factions of posthumans, or something in that vein, but I don’t think most people where I live (in the SF bay area) would think they have any connotation. I was intentionally trying to think of a new word without any pre-existing baggage.
To be specific, “Righter” sounds to me like religious right and righteousness. “Truther” sounds like 9-11 truther and Colbert’s truthiness. It might just be me.
Interesting. I’ve heard right-winger, but never righter alone. I hadn’t heard of 9-11 truther, but that definitely rules out truther for sure. I am familiar with truthiness, but it didn’t come to mind for me in thinking about truther. It’s interesting how idiosyncratic language is, especially when it comes to connotation.
I agree that rationalist has baggage in the minds of most people, and it evokes rationalization and related antithetical concepts for many.
If Less Wrong expands the community and shapes future discussions on rationalist topics in the way that I expect it to, this might just be the last good time to coin a new term.
I nominate righters and truthers, in that order.
“righter” is straight out—it sounds like “writer” in spoken English. .
It would be clear from context which was intended. English has many homophones, and they don’t seem to cause much difficulty. Is that not your experience with the many existing homophones?
I wouldn’t say that English has ‘many’ homophones. And yes, I think they’re generally very annoying, when they can be used as the same part of speech. There isn’t much confusion between ‘led’ (past tense of ‘to lead’) and ‘lead’ (the heavy metal). However, it always takes a moment to catch up when someone uses ‘right’ as a verb, and I imagine ‘righter’ would be even worse, especially as an obscure jargon term.
We are getting a bit off-topic, so this is my last post in this thread.
I’d argue that this constitutes many (note the restrictions too, which result in excluded entries).
With regard to how noticeable homophones are, it feels to me like there is a priming effect due to the context, which results in the sense that was intended being obvious and coming to mind effortlessly. For example, cents and sense sound the same in some dialects, but I doubt many would even consider interpreting the sound in question as cents if they heard the previous sentence spoken. I think most homophones are like that, most of the time, and that it usually takes effort to even notice them, as when trying to think of a pun. I will grant you though that righter and writer are more alike in terms of their meaning, and thus easier to confuse, but I just wouldn’t consider that sufficient reason to not even consider it as an option.
Truthers is already used for people who think Bush was behind 9/11. Righters isn’t used for anything that I know of, but sounds like it means “people who think they’re right all the time”, which was one of the problems with “rationalist”. It also sounds like it could mean “right-wingers” or “people who believe in rights”.
In my dialect of english, “righter” and “truther” have unpleasant connotations about as strong as the connotations around “rationalist”.
My dialect may be different than yours, of course.
What is your dialect? In my dialect (Californian American), neither word has much of a connotation at all. They both have a vague feel of something I might read in a modern science fiction book talking about different factions of posthumans, or something in that vein, but I don’t think most people where I live (in the SF bay area) would think they have any connotation. I was intentionally trying to think of a new word without any pre-existing baggage.
I live in the american northeast.
To be specific, “Righter” sounds to me like religious right and righteousness. “Truther” sounds like 9-11 truther and Colbert’s truthiness. It might just be me.
Interesting. I’ve heard right-winger, but never righter alone. I hadn’t heard of 9-11 truther, but that definitely rules out truther for sure. I am familiar with truthiness, but it didn’t come to mind for me in thinking about truther. It’s interesting how idiosyncratic language is, especially when it comes to connotation.