I am suddenly reminded of the fact that the most recent movie adaptation of Dune used the word "crusade" for what the book consistently, unflinchingly called a "jihad".
Honestly, I can understand the decision. "Jihad" is technically the correct term, but it carries so many negative connotations in the West that using it would be a distraction.
Surely someone who is signing up for an account on an American tech message board would understand the connotation that word carries in the West (and indeed in Islamic society as well, since contextual usage makes it quite obvious what's inferred and there are multiple words that could be used instead). An innocent excuse of "well in my language it just means struggle" is only going to fool the naïve.
There are many words aquired across cultures and given meanings that differ from their original context. Using such words can prompt discussion and leave some better informed about original meaning in original contexts in populations that dwarf the US population.
Why should I care about this? Is your point that the population of Islamic societies it greater than the US population, and thus they get to dictate how that word is used in this country, in its own cultural context?
HN is a US tech forum, sure .. the US tech sector, of course, is composed of a wealth of people not born in the US, or born in the US to immigrant parents.
You are welcome to maintain your keyhole view of language and the world, others see a bigger picture .. which runs contrary to your assertion about "only".
No, I don't have to agree with this actually. My view of language isn't a keyhole because I refuse to play a game about the very obvious meaning of that word. The US tech sector is, first and foremost, the US tech sector. I am not required to adopt a watered down version of reality or supplant my own language because there's people from other countries who work here.
I'm not stating an opinion though. Only in the ivy towers of exceedingly diverse tech companies could one make the argument that there's some innocuous and reassuring meaning of that word that doesn't imply what it does, in fact, imply in any Western country. Everywhere else a Jihad is, ya know, a Jihad. I also never pretended to speak for everyone in the islamic world, which you are attempting to use as a cudgel here, as in I'm somehow "speaking for the Muslim world" by pointing out that normal people in America know what that word means.
