<story><title>Cryptographers are not happy with how you’re using the word ‘crypto’</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cryptocurrency-cryptographers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>There are t-shirts, stickers, pins and mugs with &amp;quot;crypto means cryptography&amp;quot; printed on them. This linguistic squabble is so well established that it has merch. But I can&amp;#x27;t begrudge publications getting an easy bit of writing out.&lt;p&gt;This fight is over. You knew it was over the second time you were talking to someone you didn&amp;#x27;t know well, were about to use the term &amp;quot;crypto&amp;quot;, and paused to check in your head how they&amp;#x27;d interpret the word. &amp;quot;Crypto&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;cryptocurrency&amp;quot;, not &amp;quot;cryptography&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;We shouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised: there&amp;#x27;s orders of magnitude more people interested in get-rich-quick schemes than in abstract algebra.&lt;p&gt;The cryptography engineers will be happier the sooner they let this go and find some new slang for themselves.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dfxm12</author><text>&lt;i&gt;The cryptography engineers will be happier the sooner they let this go and find some new slang for themselves.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;This reminds me of Michael Bolton in Office Space being angry at the musician with the same name.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Why should I change? He&amp;#x27;s the one who sucks!&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=qI1NfFExOSo&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=qI1NfFExOSo&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Cryptographers are not happy with how you’re using the word ‘crypto’</title><url>https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/18/crypto-cryptocurrency-cryptographers</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tptacek</author><text>There are t-shirts, stickers, pins and mugs with &amp;quot;crypto means cryptography&amp;quot; printed on them. This linguistic squabble is so well established that it has merch. But I can&amp;#x27;t begrudge publications getting an easy bit of writing out.&lt;p&gt;This fight is over. You knew it was over the second time you were talking to someone you didn&amp;#x27;t know well, were about to use the term &amp;quot;crypto&amp;quot;, and paused to check in your head how they&amp;#x27;d interpret the word. &amp;quot;Crypto&amp;quot; means &amp;quot;cryptocurrency&amp;quot;, not &amp;quot;cryptography&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;We shouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised: there&amp;#x27;s orders of magnitude more people interested in get-rich-quick schemes than in abstract algebra.&lt;p&gt;The cryptography engineers will be happier the sooner they let this go and find some new slang for themselves.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>munch117</author><text>The &amp;quot;crypto&amp;quot; part of the word &amp;quot;cryptocurrency&amp;quot; is short for &amp;quot;cryptography&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;If instead &amp;quot;crypto&amp;quot; is short for &amp;quot;cryptocurrency&amp;quot;, then it would follow that &amp;quot;cryptocurrency&amp;quot; is short for &amp;quot;cryptocurrencycurrency&amp;quot;, which is short for &amp;quot;cryptocurrencycurrencycurrency&amp;quot;, which is short for &amp;quot;cryptocurrencycurrencycurrencycurrency&amp;quot; etc.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m just going to stick with &amp;quot;crypto&amp;quot; being short for &amp;quot;cryptography&amp;quot;, with an added mental note that the short form is ambiguous.  I guess I just don&amp;#x27;t have the patience to see an infinite recursion through to the end.</text></comment>