Aggravated by “algorithms”

by John Q on September 29, 2026

I’m mostly a descriptivist when it comes to the meaning of words. If everyone uses “literally” to mean “figuratively”, that’s fine by me. Same if there is no likelihood of confusion, as with “aggravate” for “annoy” as well as “exacerbate”. But that still leaves me plenty of room to gripe about the way in which words are used, so it’s time for a good old whinge.

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