alt Hacker NewsThat is a prescriptivist way of thinking about language, which is useful if you enjoy feeling righteous about correctness, but not so helpful for understanding how communication actually works. In reality-reality, "kilobyte" may mean either "1000 bytes" or "1024 bytes", depending on who is saying it, whom they are saying it to, and what they are saying it about.
You are free to intend only one meaning in your own communication, but you may sometimes find yourself being misunderstood: that, too, is reality.
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pif • yesterday at 6:20 PM
I understand the usual meaning, but I use the correct meaning when precision is required.
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It's not even really prescriptivist thinking… "Kilobyte" to mean both 1,000 B & 1,024 B is well-established usage, particularly dependent on context (with the context mostly being HDD manufacturers who want to inflate their drive sizes, and … the abomination that is the 1.44 MB diskette…). But a word can be dependent on context, even in prescriptivist settings.
E.g., M-W lists both, with even the 1,024 B definition being listed first. Wiktionary lists the 1,024 B definition, though it is tagged as "informal".
As a prescriptivist myself I would love if the world could standardize on kilo = 1000, kibi = 1024, but that'll likely take some time … and the introduction of the word to the wider public, who I do not think is generally aware of the binary prefixes, and some large companies deciding to use the term, which they likely won't do, since companies are apt to always trade for low-grade perpetual confusion over some short-term confusion during the switch.