Facebook name change entertaining for Hebrew speakers

The Facebook name change is entertaining for Hebrew speakers.

Meta: Facebook's new name ridiculed by Hebrew speakers

I don't speak Hebrew, but the text-to-speech option in Bing translate seems to confirm this.


I was doing my own research into the etymology of the term 'meta'. Apparently it was a misinterpretation of the term 'metaphysics' which simply means, "the books that come after physics", the context being the conventional ordering of a collection of books at that time.

The Facebook name change is entertaining for Hebrew speakers.

Meta: Facebook's new name ridiculed by Hebrew speakers

I don't speak Hebrew, but the text-to-speech option in Bing translate seems to confirm this.


I was doing my own research into the etymology of the term 'meta'. Apparently it was a misinterpretation of the term 'metaphysics' which simply means, "the books that come after physics", the context being the conventional ordering of a collection of books at that time.

I've always understood metaphysics to be that which is "beyond" physics although I must have looked it up at some point to come to that conclusion. A quick look at Wikipedia confirms your book ordering story but there's extra context which is interesting (bolding mine):

In origin Metaphysics was just the title of one of the principal works of Aristotle; it was so named (by Andronicus of Rhodes) because in the customary ordering of the works of Aristotle it was the book following Physics; it thus meant nothing more than "[the book that comes] after [the book entitled] Physics". However, even Latin writers misinterpreted this as entailing metaphysics constituted "the science of what is beyond the physical".[5] Nonetheless, Aristotle's Metaphysics enunciates considerations of natures above physical realities, which one can examine through this particular part of philosophy, for example, the existence of God. The use of the prefix was later extended to other contexts based on the understanding of metaphysics to mean "the science of what is beyond the physical".

Words acquire meaning over time because of how they are normally used.

However I'm never quite one to follow convention, I enjoy looking and appreciating the older meanings which for me have relevance in their own right. For example the term "cynic". We think we know what that means. But it actually has the same root as canine.

https://www.etymonline.com/word/cynic

Wits of the time made a joke of its name, calling its members stray dogs, hence cynic (doglike), a label that Diogenes made into literal fact, living with a pack of stray dogs, homeless except for a tub in which he slept.

Another is the term 'sophisticated'.

The one we most commonly come across on our forum of course is the term 'sceptic', which has been abused and misused so frequently as to have lost its true meaning for most people. A loss which I observe with regret.

The one we most commonly come across on our forum of course is the term 'sceptic', which has been abused and misused so frequently as to have lost its true meaning for most people. A loss which I observe with regret.

Agreed. I think there's even a disconnect between being a sceptic and being sceptical. Being a sceptic - especially on the internet - seems to have become associated with the whole atheist/materialist mindset along with other terms they have co-opted like rationalist and critical thinker, as though only those of that mindset can lay claim to those terms.