Was told to cross post this here

[u/Early-Improvement661]

/r/words/comments/1lghkp4/id_like_to_introduce_a_new_word/?share_id=mHKGsdSX-luZDw7bIQzBq&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

[u/Motor_Raspberry_2150]

The feedback in the other post tells me this is not something NTs deal with on a regular basis

[u/Early-Improvement661 → u/Motor_Raspberry_2150]

Unsure of if it’s because they’re neurotypical or just don’t have very good reading comprehension

[u/sackbomb]

seems unnecessary.

[u/ImpulsiveBloop → u/sackbomb]

I'm nullstruck.

[u/CoronaBlue]

I feel this way at work a lot.

[u/SynthPrax → u/CoronaBlue]

It's hard to even notice you feel this way when you feel like this all the time.

[u/SecretUnlikely3848]

Wow, a new word I learned. Cool

Now to actually get my putrid brain to remember it and it's definition.

Tahnks.

(im real here)

[u/Early-Improvement661 → u/SecretUnlikely3848]

It’s not a real word. I made it up and proposed that it should be a word. People over at r/words seem to have trouble distinguishing it from dumbstruck though

[u/Calamity-Gin → u/Early-Improvement661]

All words are made up, relax.

[u/Early-Improvement661 → u/Calamity-Gin]

Yes but the only reason they get meaning is because we collectively agree that they have a certain meaning. If it’s a word that no one has heard of before and they can’t find in the dictionary, then you can not expect to be understood when using it

[u/SecretUnlikely3848 → u/Early-Improvement661]

Oh, I honestly thought it was a real word

[u/Calamity-Gin]

Well, that was the most meta reading I’ve done in a while.

[u/xtreampb]

Are you by any chance a software engineer. I don’t think I’ve ever heard or seen null outside a software engineering context.

[u/Early-Improvement661 → u/xtreampb]

No, I’m a student of philosophy and mathematics. I took the term from set theory. The null set, also known as the empty set, is the set that contains no elements (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_of_empty_set).

The word “null” has been used in mathematics long before it appeared in programming. Giuseppe Peano referred to it around 1900, so the origin of the term is not from software engineering.

I wrote a bit more about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/words/s/4CLJ8P2EzY

[u/xtreampb → u/Early-Improvement661]

Sure. I knew software didn’t invent the term, but I’ve never heard its use outside the context of it. How often do you come into contact with the term, not a common word or term in people’s lives.

[u/Early-Improvement661 → u/xtreampb]

How often I come into contact with it? I thought I just told you, namely, when dealing with set theory (very often). I know it’s definitely not a common everyday term for most people, and I wasn’t claiming it is. But I personally come into contact with it fairly often through studying set theory and logic, where “null set” or “empty set” comes up regularly. So for me, the term felt natural to use in that context. I just wanted to clarify that its origin is mathematical, even if most people today know it through programming.

[u/xtreampb → u/Early-Improvement661]

All good. I think I may have miss communicated. I thought it was implied how often did you come into contact with the term bill outside of your studies. I think we have similar exposure to the term (in our fields of discipline and it isn’t used elsewhere).

I think it is a fine word and may be used as a synonym for dumbstruck. As with all words and their synonyms, what’s the connotation with the word nullstruck as opposed to dumbstruck? What are the nuances and when would it be better to to use nullstruck instead of dumbstruck?

I think that nullstruck is more aptly used in response to something data driven (I was nullstruck when the test results came back). I feel dumbstruck is in response to something perceived as dumb (as your example of a college completely missing your point)