RIP , photojournalist James Foley

[eustacetilley]

silvarios wrote:
Deprecate as in to abhor or express disapproval of instead of a synonym for depreciate? Hmmm…guilty as charged.

You are using the words correctly. "Deprecate" and "Depreciate" are two entirely different words, from different roots.
I was referring to the nauseating tendency of Code Monkeys to use the word "deprecate" to merely indicate old or no longer supported software. They suck all the Life out of the word, leaving just a convenient husk to store their old bad code in. (Their new code is usually just as bad, if not worse.)
They get very defensive when I point out their error, (It's even happened here...), and inevitably, unknowingly, revert back to Lewis Carroll's droll assertion- "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

I once traced the misuse to a paper on Java, written by somebody whose grasp of English wasn't the best.
It was roundly ridiculed on USENET, and then quickly forgotten. I can't find the paper or the discussion- so much of USENET has been just tossed away.

To say "Version 3.1.1 has been deprecated, update to Version 3.2.2." is just thoroughly wrong. To say "Version 3.1.1 has been depreciated and will no longer be supported" is better, but not by much.
To say "Version 3.1.1 was just bloody awful. Don't use it." conveys the right use of "Deprecate", without actually using the word.
"Deprecate" in its original, true, sense is usually used these days as part of a specific phrase-"Self-Deprecating Humor". Most people recognize the concept, if not the actual phrase.
I would say more, but this prose is already far too prolix.

Thanks, silvarios.

Eustace
(Can I actually turn this ship around? Can I get some actual discussion about words, and how they are used or misused, especially in a political context, instead of the usual sniping and Bad Writing? Nah.)