BS: When did tips become hacks?

Subject: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 09:17 AM

Anyone else noticed? I am all for useful hints and tips (or even tints and hips) but shaking a boiled egg in a jar with a little cold water to peel it is NOT a 'life hack'. Nor is cleaning a keyboard with a post-it note or ironing a shirt inside out. They are useful, but they will not change your life.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 09:25 AM

A "hack" isn't just a "tip," it's a trick, a gimmick, a shortcut, used to solve a problem or get something done.

It began showing up about five years ago, as far as I know.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 09:39 AM

A "hack" isn't just a "tip," it's a trick, a gimmick, a shortcut, used to solve a problem or get something done.

Not disputing you, lighter, but I just don't understand that. I noticed it about a year ago but I will believe you when you say it is more like five. Whenever it was, what were these things before that? They were hints and tips. Who decided they were hacks instead and why? A tip or hint is a suggestion to make something easier so why not just stick to that?

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 09:43 AM

Out of interest, and maybe to highlight the point, here are some 1950s household hints. They seem no different to what people now refer to as life hacks. I think it has to do with 'click bait' on social media. Not many people would be tempted by household hints but life hacks could be quite dramatic. I suppose I am answering my own question here, or maybe just thinking aloud. Any views?

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 10:05 AM

I think you're right Dave, a new term for something that's been around since Pontius was an air-force cadet.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 10:06 AM

> Who decided they were hacks instead and why?

"They" decided. Because "hack" sounds new and cool.

I have to assume that "they" were computer hackers whose successes, I suppose, were "good hacks."

It isn't just "life hacks." There are "cooking hacks," "mileage hacks," "writing hacks," "guitar hacks," you name it.

If you're having hard time doing something, there's probably a hack for it.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 10:16 AM

Or, to use English, a 'solution'.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 10:29 AM

All languages (English in this case) are continually in the process of change. New words come along, become fashionable, and replace old ones. Old words change their meanings by a little, or a lot. Next circumstances, new objects, new procedures, new habits
call for new words to express them, and then the new words (bewailed by many) are adopted, perhaps misunderstood and misapplied, broadened in meaning.

Pedants (like me, alas!) have for literally thousands of years been viewing this kind of change in their beloved languages with alarm,
but all to no avail. They have complained that the new words or new
meanings are useless, misleading, confusing, ugly. But the change process goes on.

Learn to live with it.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 10:35 AM

I think that is the top and bottom of it, Lighter. It sounds 'new and cool' as you say. So, is it click bait? I fell for it a few times. What do the fishermen get out of it?

Dave O - But the change process goes on. Learn to live with it.

How could you! This is a folk music forum, we are traditionalists :-) Unless the change is part of the folk process of course...

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 10:40 AM

LOL! Of course it is - nobody knows who invented it, and it's been assimilated into accepted English. That's Folk, for sure! 😎

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 10:49 AM

And wearing new jeans, or whatever, has now become "rocking" them, a phrase which - along with "hack" - I find intensely irritating. But if you're going to sell old rope (material or metaphorical) ya gotta dress it up in new buzzwords, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 11:13 AM

I first came across the term 30 years ago with sense of one of the meanings given on Wikipedia :

Hack (computer science), an inelegant but effective solution to a computing problem

and would still use it that way talking to other ex-programmers of my generation. I think that is the sense that leads, via a small shift in meaning, to Life Hack

Tip still seems like a could word for a tip though.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 11:23 AM

"Hack" has also been in use for a number of years to describe a wristwatch (or pocket watch) where the second hand stops when the winder is pulled out - allowing the time to be set absolutely accurately. Thus: a hacking second hand.

Used in WW2 with many military watches.

"Gentlemen - synchronise your watches."

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 11:25 AM

bout 20 years ago, I read a book which stated explicitly that "hack" arose at Harvard during the 60's to describe an elegant solution or workaround to a problem which was annoying the hacker. It is reported as originating in the model train club there which gave rise to such people as Bill Gates and others who became the mainstays of modern computing.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 11:34 AM

The OED has "to rock" meaning to "sport" something from 1987, but I could swear I heard it before that.

I think it's only became epidemic in the last few years. Now you can even "rock" a new car.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 11:58 AM

I once wrote to one of the better dictionary companies (Websters(?)) regarding a term I heard used by a trapper in northern Alberta. The dictionary people informed me that they did not put a word into their dictionary until it had appeared in print, presumably in recognized newspapers, magazines or books. So the term could have been in common street usage quite some time before it appeared in the OED.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 12:07 PM

But it's been a long time since I actually heard somebody say, "Think you can hack it?" i.e., accomplish it.

Or, "I can't hack this shit," i.e., put up with it.

Both were common in the '60s.

Of course, so was "That ain't my bag, man."

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 12:20 PM

http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/a-short-history-of-hack

I hope bag has gone the way of groovy :-)

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: akenaton
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 12:20 PM

"Hack" is the old name for a racing tipster ....ferreting out information on a likely winner..Been used for over one hundred years, and common usage amongst racing folks both horse racing and dogs.
"Hack" is also commonly used for newspaper correspondents who also glean information not generally available to the public.

Hence "tips"..."hacks."

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 08:31 PM

A hack can also of course be a horse. Or of course a kick to the shins.

Great word for cryptic crosswords.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 09:13 PM

It's also a taxi cab.

And you give a cab driver a tip.

So obvious....

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Joe_F
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 09:58 PM

EBarnacle: For Harvard in the '60s read MIT in the '50s. I was not there at the time, but I worked at Lincoln Lab in the early '60s and it was well established there at the time. There is some overlap between hacking in the sense of finding ingenious solutions to perceived problems & in the sense ofpranks that no one else would have thought of, and it is likely that the two senses developed together. Oddly, the latter sense was current in my high school (Putney, VT) in the early '50s, tho there was surely not much traffic between there & MIT.

I did not encounter the term "life hack" on the Web till a year or two ago, but I welcomed it precisely in the sense of a household hint, or more broadly a solution to a familiar problem in ordinary life. I have always enjoyed such things, and am glad to have a name for them.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 21 Jul 15 - 11:40 PM

I can't hack the over-use of the word awesome!   It just immediately makes me want to scream. When did you Americans lose the co-ordination between brain and mouth and start using that one out of context? Now it's polluted the UK. I'm having to try and stop my kids from misusing the term. A tsunami is awesome, an earthquake is awesome, the wonders of the universe are awesome.. Being able to make farting noises with your elbow, the latest release from Taylor Swift.. or any other ridiculous use of the word as a space filler exclamation just isn't awesome!

Sorry for hijacking hacking.   I needed to let out steam on this one due to years of keeping it bottled up. Awesome!

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 05:59 AM

OK..Here's a tip...

Don't bet on the horses.

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 07:21 AM

Ah - But is that a tip or a life hack? :-)

I guess a hack is a taxi cab due to it originally being a hackney carriage? Amazing how many things hack and tip can mean :-)

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 07:53 AM

My friend in grad school in 1976 used to say "awesome" all the time. He also said, "Time to get awesome."

The word was used for some time before that by sportscasters who routinely described an impressive play (like an outfielder's home-run thwarting catch) as "awesome."

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 08:17 AM

"Being able to make farting noises with your elbow . . ."

Actually, truly awesome ones are made by cupping the right hand in the left armpit or left hand in the right armpit :-)

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 11:31 AM

Ok, I know I meant to say farting noises with the armpit - not exactly elbow. I should cut my hand off with a hacksaw. I'be really hacked off.   I'll have to go and hack at my garden weeds now in penance.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 03:48 PM

I understood the word "Hack" as used here for racing tipster, or journalist, came from "hack" (derived from hackney carriage) as being one for hire. So a hack journalist will not write specifically for one paper, but makes his work available to anyone who will pay.
The same derivation was used by (author) John Mortimer's barrister "Rumpole of The Bailey" who often describes himself as a hack lawyer.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 05:52 PM

"I'll have to go and hack at my garden weeds now in penance."

Awesome.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jul 15 - 06:23 PM

Better hack than hick though.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 03:50 AM

GUEST,#: "Being able to make farting noises with your elbow . . ."

Actually, truly awesome ones are made by cupping the right hand in the left armpit or left hand in the right armpit :-)"

...or a politician behind a podium!


GfS

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,JHW
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 05:26 AM

#
This symbol used to mean Number or No. and was read as that but 'they' now call it Hash
'They' are at it all the time

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 08:55 AM

Nothing is sacred anymore :-)

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 06:59 PM

is a tip just a useful hint, and a hack is a useful hint that's a handy shortcut to something? Circumnavigating a process, a hack? I don't know I'm not a tech geek.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 07:02 PM

'Guest': "I don't know I'm not a tech geek."

...just a regular geek...

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 06:53 AM

Mr. Sanity - be geeky and proud!
Anybody who has actually gone to the bother of having looked at this page is as geeky as the next person who has looked at it. We are all geeks, its just some are "tech" geeks and some are just us "regular" geeks.

Subject: RE: BS: When did tips become hacks?
From: akenaton
Date: 25 Jul 15 - 07:51 AM

Thanks Nigel....very interesting.