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this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2026
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Today I Learned (TIL)
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Help us out: what do you think “First World,” “Second World,” and “Third World” actually mean? The terms referred to cold war political alignment: the U.S.-led bloc, the Soviet-led bloc, and countries aligned with neither. It was not a tidy ranking from rich and civilized to poor and backward.
I agree with you and you are correct but this is linguistic prescriptivism, which is one of the things the what is a woman crowd cling to
but the other people using third wold country to mean allows sex abuse makes my skin crawl
Examine your preconceived ideas, before they examine you
I did not mean third world to mean that, but rather in the colloquial sense of how much a country takes care of its people.
Understood that so many on this platform strictly care about historical definitions and prescriptive language policing though
Being more concerned with the words used than the intended meaning is an internetism that harms us all. I'm guilty of this too..
It's tricky though, because words have meaning- and that meaning really depends on context. Not just the context in which it's spoken, but also the context is the one speaking it. And often people online who think they're arguing are really just misunderstanding each other's definitions.
You're absolutely right. In this instance I mistakenly thought it was obvious for most that I did not mean im the strict literal definition. Oh well, no big deal
Yes those were the original definitions but colloquial usage has shifted from the original meaning. Although these days the preferred terminology is developed/developing/under developed.
under developed is only preferred in academic circles, particularly economics. most other places refer to such places as "over-exploited"
Or "2/3rds world" (as in the majority of countries neither aligned with Soviet Communism nor US Capitalism and therefore not as exploited or industrialized/polluting)
I mean it in the colloquial sense based on how well taken care of the people are. No I am not writing a dissertation. This is a discussion on a message board where people may use hyperbole to make their opinion clear
:
Q. What do you call a third world country that takes care of its people as well as Scandinavia?
A. Overdue for a CIA coup
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