I always thought discreet was just a different way of spelling discrete, used by the same type of person who'd write wierd instead of weird, but apparently discreet and discrete are "supposed to" mean different things, a "discrete quantity" vs "discreet packaging".

I reject this notion and will continue to spell either sense as discrete. Both are from Old French discret, both are pronounced the same, both were spelled the same in Middle English, and discretion is still spelled the same for either meaning, so there is absolutely no reason why discrete and discreet should be spelled differently, other than to personally confuse me. There are enough people who confuse the two spellings as to make the written distinction between discrete and discreet absolutely useless.

Yes, I'm going to intentionally misspell a word because it annoys me. You should do the same for any words that you dislike the spellings of. Who's gonna stop us‽

  • culpritus [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    They are discrete words, and you can discreetly erode that reality by discreetly misspelling them into a single discrete word at your own discretion.

  • context [fae/faer, fae/faer]
    ·
    8 months ago

    standardized orthography was invented to sell dictionaries

    reejekt meereeyam-ooebstir, imbrais phreephorm speling

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
    ·
    8 months ago

    "Discreet" is a discrete word from "discrete", but people tend to be discreet about this fact.

  • Lerios [hy/hym]
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    personally i bully the english language and its idiosyncrasies the other way around; i embrace its oddly spelled words and pronounce them exactly as they should be. for instance, at my job i sometimes write pseudocode, and then have a great time telling people about my 'p-sh-you-doo-code' and seeing how many men in the office i can make try to explain my own degree to me (it works depressingly frequently).

    so yeah, as far as i'm concerned those are two different words: discreet and discrettay think-about-it

  • Dolores [love/loves]
    ·
    8 months ago

    Yes, I'm going to intentionally misspell a word because it annoys me. You should do the same for any words that you dislike the spellings of. Who's gonna stop us‽

    waow-based

      • ReadFanon [any, any]
        ·
        edit-2
        8 months ago

        Don't.

        You'll ignite debate by engaging in such a flammable topic and you should know better than to treat inflammable stuff so recklessly.

  • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    8 months ago

    you can form a pretty reliable gaydar from this alone, if my various experiences on grindr are an example of anything (correcting men who have written 'discrete' in their profiles lmao)

      • abc [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        8 months ago

        hahaha I was being completely unserious but if a man knows the difference and doesn't seem math/language inclined I'd be willing to bet they've used grindr at some point specifically because that is one of the profile tags. Not trying to read into it too much because I was mainly joking but come to think of it, there is also an argument I could make from personal experience that 'straighter' men tend to default to spelling it as discrete when they mean discreet (i say straighter because lets be real, if you're on grindr looking for some ass you're nowhere near it - but it is always the blank profiles with the 'discrete - never tried this before.....will send pics only if you verify you're not within 6 degrees of knowing anyone i interact with' type of bios that spell it wrong......)

        have typed too much about this now and am judging myself what have you DONE oooaaaaaaauhhh

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
      hexagon
      ·
      8 months ago

      My only dream is for ESL countries to each set up their own regulatory bodies for the English language specifically to codify their own homegrown "mistakes" as equal to whatever Brits and Seppos think is correct, in an effort to hasten the dissolution of English into a neo-Anglic branch of the Anglic languages

  • D61 [any]
    ·
    8 months ago

    no-no-no-wait-wait-wait Not another one... no... no!... NO!!!

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
      hexagon
      ·
      8 months ago

      Like, the vast majority of homophones actually have a reason to be spelled differently, and actually have some way for you to remember which is which, and a lot of them are only homophones in some dialects anyways. So most homophones I don't really mind, although if others choose to merge words that I personally wouldn't, then that's their decision and I respect that.

      • macerated_baby_presidents [he/him]
        ·
        8 months ago

        Idk discrete and discreet are pretty separate adjectives to me. "Discrete systems" is not a spycraft class.

        It is weird that "discretion" hasn't separated though

        • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]
          hexagon
          ·
          8 months ago

          "Discrete systems" is not a spycraft class.

          Yeah and a "red cup" is not a communist football tournament.