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I was proud of being a geek/nerd when it meant being a computery person who is passionate about science and technology and who therefore sometimes seems odd to people who are not into those things.

Well, nerd hasn't meant that in a very long time. I direct you to "Revenge of the Nerds," where there were copious "nerds" who didn't touch computers or technology: Booger, Toshiro, all the Mu Mu Mu girls, etc.

In fact, nerd has the etymology of a "stupid or crazy person." Geek is similar.

I think the current nerd is more of a person with a broad, deep knowledge, while a geek is someone with a specialized, deep knowledge.

For example, we have the verb "to geek out." You geek out over something when you are really interested in that thing. You don't geek out over everything. You geek out over tabletop games, MTG, Star Trek, anime, etc.

In my opinion, a "computer geek" is someone with a deep knowledge of computers, but not necessarily anything else. See the Geek Code, in which you specify certain areas you are proficient (although there is a GAT--geek of all trades--choice).

I also think nerd tends to imply a bit more social skill than geek. Then you have spaz, dork, etc., that don't necessarily have any skill, just social awkwardness.

A computer nerd would be someone who is a nerd and also likes computers. The distinction is that "computer" is a nonrestrictive adjective, while in "computer geek," "computer" is a restrictive adjective.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

I was proud of being a geek/nerd when it meant being a computery person who is passionate about science and technology and who therefore sometimes seems odd to people who are not into those things.

Well, nerd hasn't meant that in a very long time. I direct you to "Revenge of the Nerds," where there were copious "nerds" who didn't touch computers or technology: Booger, Toshiro, all the Mu Mu Mu girls, etc.

In fact, nerd has the etymology of a "stupid or crazy person." Geek is similar.

I think the current nerd is more of a person with a broad, deep knowledge, while a geek is someone with a specialized, deep knowledge.

For example, we have the verb "to geek out." You geek out over something when you are really interested in that thing. You don't geek out over everything. You geek out over tabletop games, MTG, Star Trek, anime, etc.

In my opinion, a "computer geek" is someone with a deep knowledge of computers, but not necessarily anything else. See the Geek Code, in which you specify certain areas you are proficient (although there is a GAT--geek of all trades--choice).

I also think nerd tends to imply a bit more social skill than geek. Then you have spaz, dork, etc., that don't necessarily have any skill, just social awkwardness.

A computer nerd would be someone who is a nerd and also likes computers. The distinction is that "computer" is a nonrestrictive adjective, while in "computer geek," "computer" is a restrictive adjective.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

"Piracy" has been used to mean, among other things, "copyright infringement" since the 1700s.

Learned Hand, a famous American jurist, used "piracy" to describe copyright infringement in the wee years of the 20th century (I read the case in law school, but I can't find it off hand to cite for you; hopefully my positive karma creates at least a modicum of trust that I'm, at a minimum, not lying outright).

Piracy doesn't just mean the sale of infringing materials.

Beyond all that, did you realize that viewing an infringing work is itself copyright infringement? (Note: I may be misremembering this, but I don't think I am.) Also, if you've ever received a video via email and called your coworkers over to watch the hilarity, you've likely infringed under 17 USC 106(4). Unless the video was in the public domain, which chances are it wasn't.

Hell, if you were around when Slashdot linked people to the Scientology OT documents and you viewed them, you pirated the materials (unauthorized duplication--courts ruled that even loading stuff into RAM constitutes a fixed duplication! Never mind temporary storage on a hard drive for streaming video.).

I think there is case law that states possession of infringing material is infringement. I could be misremembering about that, though.

The point is that our copyright system is so royally screwed up at this point that it is impossible for anyone who has the internet to not have infringed copyright at some point or another. A nation of tortfeasors indeed.

Looking at the early meanings of the word, it is not hard to see why "nice" engineers finish last. When people say nice, they often mean "thoughtful" "considerate" or "kind". However, there are important distinctions, since people with latter attributes do not typically finish last.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=nice&searchmode=none

Bah, "ain't" is a perfectly valid contraction for "am not", and has been since at least 1706. (See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=ain't&searchmode=none) Proscriptionists object to it largely because it's often used for "is not", or "are not", which was seen as somehow "perverting" the English language.

In fact, though, "ain't" has been used that way since at least the 19th century.

About the worst that you can say of "ain't" is that it's inappropriate for a formal register, but so are most contractions.

Cheers,
Your Friendly Neighborhood Pedant

Televised means remote vision: that can happen over the internet as well as a TV. Actually the article uses televised in a general sense and uses the term narrowcast when going into details. which works for me.

actually

televise 1927 back-formation from television, on model of other verbs from nouns ending in -(v)ision (e.g. revise).

So etymologically, it pertains only to the television set. The justification for using the word here is semantic change

Yeah, the past 400 years of usage of "decimate" have really indicated that the word only means "take away 10%." http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=decimate&searchmode=none

Yes, just as "homophobe" only means "afraid of that which is the same as them," "you" is only the polite form of indicating the addressee ("ye" being the casual form), "villa" only means "farm," "awful" only means "deserving of awe," and "girl" only means "young child of either sex,".

Here's a tip: words change meaning.

I'm nearly certain the grandparent meant "germanism" in the sense of "from a Germanic language", as opposed to "from the modern German language".

Nonetheless, that is false — a quick etymology lookup reveals that it came into Old English from Late Latin buxis, itself from Greek pyxis from pyxos.

"Ox" [pl. "oxen"], on the other hand, comes from Old English supposedly through Proto-Germanic; similar forms are found throughout Germanic languages, c.f. Old Norse oxi, Old Frisian oxa, Middle Dutch osse, German Ochse, Gothic auhsa.

For the pedant in all of us, the GP is correct. Etymonline explains how the -pi inflection results from an overgeneralization of the latin -us to -i pluralization (eg. status -> stati, terminus -> termini), but octopus is Greek (oktopous), not Latin, and the plural of pous (foot) is podes.

Unforutunately (of fortunately, depending on your stance), many of these words are losing their original inflectional category and are being "regularized" to the more Englishy -es (octopuses, statuses, terminuses). Many dictionaries (or the one you provided) don't even list "octopodes" as a plural (and they even list "octopi" since it's taken on a kind of folk-correctness). In order of historical correctness, it would be "octopodes" > "octopuses" > "octopi". In order of usage (and general acceptance by the masses) it would be "octopuses" > "octopi" > "octopodes"

Now, if we all spoke Chinese or Japanese, there would almost be no such thing as "plural inflection" (imagine all nouns being like mass nouns... "one octopus", "two octopus").

Piracy has referred to plagiarism for centuries. 'Meaning "one who takes another's work without permission" first recorded 1701;' Get with the times.

I've gotta disagree. "Ethics" and "morals" means basically the same thing, although there can be a distinction depending on the context of discussion. For example, I'm a law student and we study legal ethics, not legal morals.

I think the confusion comes from etymology. "Ethic" is greek in origin and "moral" is latin. According to this online etymological dictionary ethic and moral were actually translated into each other by the ancients.

Common sense is 14c., originally the power of uniting mentally the impressions conveyed by the five physical senses, thus "ordinary understanding, without which one is foolish or insane" (L. sensus communis, Gk. koine aisthesis); meaning "good sense" is from 1726. Common pleas is 13c., from Anglo-Fr. communs plets, hearing civil actions by one subject against another as opposed to pleas of the crown. Common prayer is contrasted with private prayer.

from http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=common+sense&searchmode=none

No, it's sexist! Sexist, I say!! That man was clearly referring to my lipstick!!!

"Conundrum" is harder to spell.

But since you ask,

crisis
c.1425, from Gk. krisis "turning point in a disease" (used as such by Hippocrates and Galen), lit. "judgment," from krinein "to separate, decide, judge," from PIE base *krei- "to sieve, discriminate, distinguish" (cf. Gk. krinesthai "to explain;" O.E. hriddel "sieve;" L. cribrum "sieve," crimen "judgment, crime," cernere (pp. cretus) "to sift, separate;" O.Ir. criathar, O.Welsh cruitr "sieve;" M.Ir. crich "border, boundary"). Transferred non-medical sense is 1627. A Ger. term for "mid-life crisis" is Torschlusspanik, lit. "shut-door-panic," fear of being on the wrong side of a closing gate.

conundrum
1596, Oxford University slang for "pedant," also "whim," etc., later (1790) "riddle, puzzle," also spelled quonundrum; the sort of ponderous pseudo-Latin word that was once the height of humor in learned circles.

I'll go with the 'turning point', myself.

"Conundrum" is harder to spell.

But since you ask,

crisis
c.1425, from Gk. krisis "turning point in a disease" (used as such by Hippocrates and Galen), lit. "judgment," from krinein "to separate, decide, judge," from PIE base *krei- "to sieve, discriminate, distinguish" (cf. Gk. krinesthai "to explain;" O.E. hriddel "sieve;" L. cribrum "sieve," crimen "judgment, crime," cernere (pp. cretus) "to sift, separate;" O.Ir. criathar, O.Welsh cruitr "sieve;" M.Ir. crich "border, boundary"). Transferred non-medical sense is 1627. A Ger. term for "mid-life crisis" is Torschlusspanik, lit. "shut-door-panic," fear of being on the wrong side of a closing gate.

conundrum
1596, Oxford University slang for "pedant," also "whim," etc., later (1790) "riddle, puzzle," also spelled quonundrum; the sort of ponderous pseudo-Latin word that was once the height of humor in learned circles.

I'll go with the 'turning point', myself.

The first thing I thought of was that in German and Dutch, aard = earth.
I looked it up, and yes, I'm right. Not sure if it was some amazingly funny ironic Jewish joke that I don't get, but hey, in case it's not, we've all been educated.

You've lost that fight. Piracy has been used as a term for copyright infringement since 1701.

As if the rightness or wrongness of something depends upon how many people accept it
Rubbish. With something like a language, which exists soley for the purpose of communication, has evolved over time (and will continue to do so) with no central authority the only meaningful definition of "rightness" is commonality of acceptance. Unlike Perl or algebra there is no standard, no test, no unarguable definition of what's right or wrong. The dictionary does not define the language it describes it. The definition is done by it's speakers.

As for your Orwell quote, my interpretation of his actual text is that he's against a decline in the quality of writing, and of expression, not the process of change within the language itself. He mentions bad metaphors, pretentious phrases, "uninspiring" writing. That, to me, is an entirely different issue to that of the evolution of meaning.

There's evolution and there's corruption. By allowing the corruption of the word hacker, people who are hackers in the correct sense are lumped in with those in the incorrect sense. Now we have to come up with another word for those who are hackers in the original sense... when we already had words for both!

Agreed, it's confusing. But it's also commonplace, English is rife with words with multiple meanings. For example: "Park", "Bank", "Letter", "Well", or "Grass". In some cases the correct meaning can be inferred from context ("I took my money to the bank" vs "We sat on the left bank of the river"), in some cases it cannot ("He burnt the grass"). Call it corruption or call it evolution, it's been happening for as long as the language has existed, will continue to happen for as long as people still speak it, and is generally accepted and understood. I hope you're not arguing that, for example, "Bank" should only have one meaning? If so, which one?

By allowing copyright infringement to be called piracy, they are associating it with something far more sinister than kids swapping files.
According to this page, that particular double meaning of "Pirate" has been in use since at least 1701. Isn't 300 years enough to consider something part of the language? I put it to you that your rejection of this usage of "pirate" is more to do with your personal beliefs on copyright than any consideration for the purity of the language. As for hacker, I think there's still time to correct the errant usage, but it's a battle we'll probably lose.

Propagandists use this against us all the time. "It's not murder... it's execution."
And they would be right. Murder has a very specific meaning - it doesn't just mean "kill" (after all, we already have a word for that!). I strongly disagree with the death penalty, and I think capital punishment is just "as bad" as murder, but that does not make them the same thing. To equate them is to confuse the matter.

Oh and "Murder" is also a group of Crows. See how fun English is?

Y'know... I've never really liked it when people use the word "ye" to mean "you"... it means "the". And it's actually supposed to be pronounced that way, too...

No, it could be either, depending on context. Use as a pronoun was far more common. Don't let the overuse in fantasy novels and faux-archaic bar signs fool you.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ye
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_(pronoun)

Piracy? As in rapine and murder? Really? Sounds like guilt bubbling to the surface to me.

To be fair, "piracy" as meaning "copyright infringement" has been in use since 1701, well before the RIAA was created..

That is a backronym. The word Geek predates the "computer/technology" thing by quite a bit.

See:
http://www.bartleby.com/61/0/G0070000.html
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=geek

Blaming the "mass media" is not going to help, they are not in a grand conspiracy to steal your word. They use the word the way it is known to their reader/viewership, and it's not their "fault" the word has that meaning.

Did you read the etymology of "hack"? I don't think so because if you did you should of saw how the first connotation of it as being bad was 1984 by the mass media but that it was used for year prior to that with an ethical connotation.

You obviously missed the lines before that which equate it with "prostitute" (definite negative connotations)

Two problems with this, one computers have nothing to do with prostitution. And two it's only negative to puritans and those like you, I have absolutely no problem with prostitution and believe it should be legal, require medical checks perhaps but legal still. As with many other things, I disagree with all laws that make something illegal even when there is no harm to anyone else.

But of course to you then "one who writes anything for hire" is also bad.

It's akin to using "tree" when talking to computer scientists or programmers. Quite often the first thing they'll think about is a data structure, not something barkish with real-life leaves. There are countless other words that carry a different meaning when used in smaller circles or professions, "hack" and "hacker" are no different.

There's already a word to use when people use computers to do bad things, "criminal". If a new word is needed create one, compuminal perhaps. Years ago I kept a log, journal, of neologisms, some I found and some I created myself.

The only real distinction that word has it that it has an inordinately high likelihood of being misunderstood without context; a hacker describing their latest cool hack may elicit a member of the general public to stamp them as an unethical criminal

Which is why I ask those who insist on using "hacker" with a bad connotation to at least use "blackhat hacker". You may find it strange I insist on doing stuff like this but I don't believe in letting something slide when I think it's wrong, well except grammar and spelling.

Falcon

No matter how often "ethical hackers" claim the word for themselves or try to give it a meaning contrary to what the general populace believes the word to mean, it still carries that meaning.

The meaning has been maligned because that's how the mass media uses it and no one corrects them on it.

Look at the etymology of "hack".

I have, have you? The Online Etymology Dictionary is pretty good, read the second (2) entry particularly. As used with writers "hack" dates back to 1749, whereas with criminals using computers it first appears in 1984. It's ethical meaning was used years before then. I first came across the ethical meaning in the mid to late 1970s in magazines like "Byte: The small and micro systems journal" magazine. My fav writers in "Byte" was Steve Ciarcia who wrote the column "Circuit Cellar" which became it's own magazine and Jerry Pournelle's "Chaos Manor".

Falcon

Damn, no mod points. I went off on a mission to prove IPU wrong and discovered that "just desserts" is, indeed, improper usage.

Alert moderators are right to mod me offtopic, of course.

The word "dessert" comes from the French desservir, "to clear the table," literally "un-serve" (des + servir)and therefore refers only to the last course of a meal and has nothing to do with the French construction de "completely" + deservir, "to serve well".

Etymology from http://www.etymonline.com./ Surely these French verbal constructions are from Latin.

not quite.
degree
c.1230, from O.Fr. degre "a degree, step, rank," from V.L. *degradus "a step," from L.L. degredare, from L. de- "down" + gradus "step" (see grade). Most modern senses date from M.E., from notion of a hierarchy of steps. Meaning "a grade of crime" is 1676; that of "a unit of temperature" is from 1727. The division of the circle into 360 degrees is very ancient and was known in Babylon and Egypt. It is perhaps from the daily motion of the sun through the zodiac in the course of a year.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=degree

so degrees that involve tempature are NOT degree's that involve angle but the more generic 'steps of a scale'.

You are hilariously wrong.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=dwarf&searchmode=term

This probably doesn't prove anything, but if you consider the usefulness of slaves being their brawn rather than their brainpower, then Slavs are a bit suspect.

Their beautiful girls notwithstanding.

They pirated the game

Yeah and you raped the dictionary. Transposing words with a high negativity index in order to try to capitalize on people's emotion is a time tested marketing trick. It is also a logical fallacy, appeal to emotion and conflation.

Too bad you're wrong, Mr. Troll: those phrases haven't been around for "cednturies [sic]." The phrase third world was coined by Alfred Sauvy in the 1950s. He also retroactively coined the words first world and second world to apply to already existent categorical differences between the Democratic West and the Communist East. I believe the phrase you confused with first world is the Old World. However, the Old World does not merely apply to the wealthy European nations, but all of Eurasia and Africa as well.

Well if your going to get all accurate about it, pirates sail the high seas, attack and board vessels and pillage the contents.

/me sighs.

The word "pirate" has been used in the current context since long before modern computers even existed, as any etymological dictionary will tell you.

You're pretty much completely wrong on the knee-jerk arguments about fair use as well, in almost any jurisdiction in the West.

Please at least do some basic fact checking before you post a smart-ass response, particularly if you're going to criticise people for not being "all accurate about it"!

Or, to be a bit more fair to Microsoft, the "trawling" spelling variant could be used.

Or, to be a bit more fair to Microsoft, the "trawling" spelling variant could be used.

Interestingly enough, even though the words sound similar and mean similar things, they have totally different origins:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=troll

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=trawl

"Troll" originally came from a French word meaning "to wander", while "trawl" originally came from a Dutch word meaning "to drag".

Interestingly enough, even though the words sound similar and mean similar things, they have totally different origins:

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=troll

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=trawl

"Troll" originally came from a French word meaning "to wander", while "trawl" originally came from a Dutch word meaning "to drag".

Well starting from first principals, I'd have to be of the philosophy that society does have a duty to provide for it's members. Or rather to make it possible for its members to provide for themselves. However, enabling free-riders is both counter-productive and actually lowers the dignity of the person acting as a free-rider. (That last part might need explanation. If I constantly catch your fish for you rather than teaching you how to fish, then I make you dependent on me and prevent you from reaching your full potential. (Engaging in equitable trade for my fish instead of you learning how to fish is perfectly fine. I'm making a point more about when my giving you free stuff may harm you ability to care for yourself.))

In theory any societal or political structure that is capable of achieving the twin goals of providing for its members and enabling those members to reach their full potential as human persons is acceptable (this includes productivity in work as well as spiritual, emotional, intellectual, physical, artistic, etc. aspects). In practice, things are quite a bit more messy since humans are very flawed, selfish creatures and so some social structures just don't work.

On the more practical side of things I can really only make two claims.

First, it is usually better for a smaller sub-group of society rather than a larger sub-group to be the one to try to accomplish any particular task provided that smaller sub-group is able to do so to a satisfactory degree. (This is sometimes called the "Principal of Subsidiary" but you might have a hard time googling for that.) This tends to reduce administrative overhead as well as gives the individuals more control and makes the society more responsive to the changing and differing needs of its members. For example, trash service should be provided at the city level rather than the state or federal level. On the other hand, while individual neighborhoods or individual people could purchase trash service from various companies, below a certain level it becomes unworkable (e.g. having 5 different trash trucks come by each weak). (Note, by sub-groups of society I include more than just city/state/federal. I also include individual, family, circle of friends, private companies, charitable and religious organizations, etc. Sometimes the groups overlap and sometimes one group is considered a part of (a subsidiary of?) another group (e.g. local chapter of an origination versus the national level of the organization).)

Ok, so the second claim is that economists have a lot of tools for understanding ways of organizing a society that most of us don't take advantage of. Economics isn't just about money. The very word comes the Greek word for household management. What little I learned from the one class in (micro) Economics that I took, made me realize how many political questions are easily settle with a bit of understanding of Economic theory. For example, any "luxury tax" won't actually tax the buyer. A luxury by definition has a very elastic demand. This means that if the net price goes up, people will buy less of the item. In response the seller has to lower the price in order to maintain a profit. The net result is that the ones producing the luxury items "pay" the tax because they are selling the item for less while the buyers of the luxury items don't "pay" for the tax because the lowered price balances out the increase of the tax and they pay the same net price. (There are mathematical models to describe all this in more detail and I'm actually glossing over quite a bit.) This all goes to say that people (myself included) who want to debate things such as universal health care should really study economic theory. Otherwise their opinions are likely to make about as much economic sense as the opinions of your average non-scientist about black holes and quantum particles or a non-programmer about "clogged up inter-tubes".

Ok, maybe that was

Math is the Amer.Eng. shortening, attested from 1890; the British preference, maths is attested from 1911.

To me, "maths vs math" isn't a big deal at all. I'm an American, and when I said "math" around my British friend the other day, he blew up, criticizing me for saying it incorrectly and being an idiot. Not cool. I'm surprised at how sensitive people are over the tiniest little things.

It's a British vs. American thing. Please see this etymology article for more info. (Although, curiously, the American "math" is older than the British "maths." That doesn't mean one is necessarily more correct than the other; they may have been arrived at independently.)

I'd go further and say all people who speak English, as opposed to 'Meekan. Just my bias.

Math is the Amer.Eng. shortening, attested from 1890; the British preference, maths is attested from 1911.

No one knows, apparently: cagey

Meaning "one who takes another's work without permission" first recorded 1701

Well, the word itself predates Darwin by another couple of centuries...

The word may have been shunned in print, but it continued in conversation, especially among soldiers during WWI.

"It became so common that an effective way for the soldier to express this emotion was to omit this word. Thus if a sergeant said, 'Get your ----ing rifles!' it was understood as a matter of routine. But if he said 'Get your rifles!' there was an immediate implication of urgency and danger."

> Still, with all the niggling little problems,

Fuck you, you fucking racist twit. Any "point" you were trying to make is now lost, thanks to this unnecessary redneck 'jab'.

Racist twit? Let's look at the dictionary.com entry for "niggling". Not one entry states that it derives from the word you apparently think it does. And if you go to the Online Etymology Dictionary, it states the word most likely derives from a Norwegian root with no relation to the word you were thinking of.

I would cite things about myself to further prove I'm not a racist, but the basic fact is... I don't have to. You flew off the handle just because an unflattering word begins with "nigg" and you automatically made the assumption it was related to a racial epithet beginning with the same letters. Your assumption was wrong and you couldn't be bothered to check your facts before resorting to abusive name calling.

- Greg

It means that the associations of a stereo type and ethnicity is so ingrained that the word is now synonymous.

Wrong, simply because the link between the term "to gyp" and the ethnic group "gypsy" is by-and-large broken, except for the hyper-sensitive few, such as yourself. IOW, the words can't be synonymous because the vast majority of people aren't even aware they're connected. Go on, walk down the street and ask random people if a) they think the term "gypped" is racist, and b) what race or ethnic group they associate the term with. I'd be *shocked* if more than a small minority even know of the connection you're railing against.

Meanwhile, have you ever wondered why the word "hysterical" and "hysterectomy" seem to have the same root? Are you aware of the etymology of the term "hysterical"? Here, let me provide it for you:

"1615, from L. hystericus "of the womb," from Gk. hysterikos "of the womb, suffering in the womb," from hystera "womb" (see uterus). Originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women and thought to be caused by a dysfunction of the uterus. Hysterics is 1727; hysteria, abstract noun, formed 1801."

link

So, by your own standards, the term "hysterical" is, in fact, sexist, and we should avoid it's use, and abuse and deride those who do use it, correct? And yet, we don't. Nor does anyone associate a sexist connotation with the word. And why? Because the sexist roots of the word are lost to time. Similarly, the racist roots of the word "gypped" (assuming there are any... others have proposed alternate explanations for it's genesis) would probably have vanished by now, if it weren't for the rabid few who can't seem to let it go.

So just let it the fuck go! I have *never once* heard someone use the term "gypped" in a negative way, intending to demean gypsies. Hell, I'll bet dollars to donuts you haven't either. But, hey, god forbid you should step down from that moral high horse you're perched so precariously upon.

"to cheat, swindle," 1889, Amer.Eng., probably short for Gypsy.

The "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997) has a second theory in addition to the "gypsy" one. "GYP - According to the popular etymology, to 'gyp,' 'to cheat,' derives from the name of the much maligned gypsies, who got their name because 16th-century Englishmen erroneously assumed they hailed from Egypt. ....
Then there's the "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Volume 1, A-G" by J.E. Lighter, Random House, New York, 1994: GYP or GIP v. 1.a. to cheat; defraud; charge exorbitantly - sometimes considered offensive to the Roma (Gypsies). Now colloq. b. to disappoint. 2. to steal, filch.

Which is clearly not the context in which we are discussing it.

Ah, you can change the discussion but I can't?

If one has "faith" that a person will do some action (we can pretend that there is a "right" thing to do if that makes it easier for you to think about) then it is either based on one's observations of the past actions of that individual or it is based on wishful thinking. The latter I would argue is superstitious. In the former case the use of "faith" is a relic of the superstitious past and is basically a different word.

I gave a definition of one of my dictionaries' definitions and as I said previously it does not require any belief in any supernatural being. As for it being a relic from a superstitious past, it was used in this fashion later. From the "Online Etymology Dictionary":

faith "c.1250, 'duty of fulfilling one's trust,' from O.Fr. feid, from L. fides 'trust, belief,' from root of fidere 'to trust,' from PIE base *bhidh-/*bhoidh- (cf. Gk. pistis; see bid). For sense evolution, see belief. Theological sense is from 1382; religions called faiths since c.1300. Faith-healer is from 1885."

Fact is is "faith" was used theologically after 32 years after it was first used and 50 years went by before being used in religion.

Actually, the link between 'heresy' and 'hearsay' is interesting to speculate on...

Heresy: Etymology: Middle English heresie, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin haeresis, from Late Greek hairesis, from Greek, action of taking, choice, sect, from hairein to take (source)

Hearsay: "hearsay is 1532 from phrase to hear say" (source); hear: Etymology: Middle English heren, from Old English hIeran; akin to Old High German hOren to hear, and probably to Latin cavEre to be on guard, Greek akouein to hear (source); say: Etymology: Middle English, from Old English secgan; akin to Old High German sagEn to say, Lithuanian sakyti, Greek ennepein to speak, tell (source).

Alas, no fun at all.