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Poll: In what sense do you primarily use or hear the term “degenerate”?
  • Noun: Social pariah
    57.8%
  • Math/physics sense
    13.5%
  • Verb for decay/collapse
    27.4%
  • New word for me
    1.2%
325 votesFinal results
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Well it specifically refers to a system with zero-information dimensions. Like 3 collinear points is a degenerate triangle. Your adjectives are possible valuation terms for such states but not central to the math itself.
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I selected math/physics but I actually mostly hear it as a colloquial adjective, so not really any of the above.
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Mostly I use “degenerate” as a suggestion to replace “devolve”. Yes, the meaning of “devolve” has — er — evolved, and I’m not a prescriptivist, but evolution is neither teleological nor reversable.
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When you call someone a pariah you're making a statement about social status (shunned). Calling someone a degenerate means they Ought To Be shunned, even if they're in fact high status, because there is some standard they're failing to meet or norm they're not coming in line with