“Definitely never seen this type of response to a FOIA request,” quipped one journalist.

  • grue@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    No, absolutely not. I’m sorry, but that’s a bullshit false cognate that gives Musk way too much credit. The reality is much simpler, and stupider: it’s just a meme misspelling of “dog” that, even in its initial conception, was canonically coined by an idiot.

    The etymology of “dog” is admittedly a little mysterious, but I can’t find anything at all to suggest it’s even slightly related to “dux.”

    • Hawke@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      He’s right in that there’s a word doge (as in Doge of Venice) that matches what he said. I don’t think I’d consider it a false cognate, but a true cognate to a different word with an unrelated etymology. They just happen to be spelt and pronounced identically.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        I don’t think I’d consider it a false cognate, but a true cognate to a different word with an unrelated etymology.

        That’s literally the definition of “false cognate.”

        • Hawke@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          No, a false cognate is a word with similar sound and meaning but different origin/etymology.

          Doge (of Venice) - duke - dux - duca - duce

          All true cognates, he’s perfectly correct there.

          There’s no similarity to the meaning of the doge meme at all. The word sounds the same and is spelled the same, but has a different meaning. Therefore not a false cognate. You might get to a false cognate if you make the connection that DOGE (government organization) is somehow a mid-level ruler of something, but as you say that’s probably giving Musk too much credit.

          It could be a false friend though.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            You might get to a false cognate if you make the connection that DOGE (government organization) is somehow a mid-level ruler of something, but as you say that’s probably giving Musk too much credit.

            Right. That’s the connection the guy I replied to was trying to make, that’s what I called a false cognate, and you’ve now agreed with me that I was correct in doing so.

            I never said that “Doge (of venice)” was a false cognate of duce/duke/dux. I said that DOGE of the fucking shiba inu meme/edgelord government wrecking agency was a false cognate of it.

            • Hawke@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              That’s the point I was trying to make:

              It’s a weird thing because DOGE of government could be argued to be a false cognate because you could interpret it to have a meaning that was never intended…but you kind of have to stretch it.

              And DOGE Shiba Inu as Musk intends it (shitty “fellow kids”/“hur hur space sex boring company” meme) is a false friend but not a false cognate.

              But Doge as OP wrote it, he’s correct and it’s a true cognate.

              Anyway, I think we’re pretty well in violent agreement and there’s not much else to say. Cheers!