Jon Clausen wrote:
On Sun, Oct 13, 2002 at 11:31:28AM +0100, Rachel Greenham wrote:
Erk, he godwinated. Damn, that means the argument's lost :-P
That's not in the dictionary... explain please? :)
A piece of Usenet history... To invoke "Godwin's Law" is to make a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis in an inappropriate and desperate attempt to prove your argument. The person who does this automatically loses the argument. http://www.dickalba.demon.co.uk/usenet/guide/faq_godw.html and http://www.killfile.org/faqs/godwin.html "Godwinate" seems to be a more recent term, ie a verb that means "to invoke Godwin's Law". eg: in a recent Linux Kernel Mailing List post by Rik van Riel: "Will you do the honours or are you waiting for somebody else to godwinate the thread ?" Then there's "auto-godwinate" - for those incendiary individuals who manage to start an argument and take it all the way through to a Nazi/Hitler comparison in one post. Who says the internet doesn't have culture? :-) -- Rachel