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0 pointsnanis4y ago0 comments

> penny pincher for not wanting to spend thousands of pennies

Yes, literally, the dictionary meaning of a "penny pincher" is one who does not want to part with his pennies.

The author of the article, on the other hand, seems to call people "penny pinchers" if they do not adopt rules of thumb but instead painstakingly analyze all alternatives. Sure, paralysis by analysis can be bad or there is nothing wrong with focusing one's cognitive energies sparingly etc, but there is very little in the article about penny pinching.

You preferences may say "it is more important for me to save seven bucks in this context." That does not compel other people to enjoy your preferences.

In my life, I have been in groups where if a few people consumed some relatively more expensive food or drinks, they are responsible enough to take care of that.

Also, when you go out with a large group, you do tip the wait staff generously, right?

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lotsofpulp4y ago

> Yes, literally, the dictionary meaning of a "penny pincher" is one who does not want to part with his pennies.

I understood the context to be pennies being insignificant. Thousands, tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of pennies are not insignificant (to most people), so penny pincher would be a useless term in that situation. The alternative is where even saving a billion dollars, since it can be translated to 100 billion pennies, is being a penny pincher.

> You preferences may say "it is more important for me to save seven bucks in this context." That does not compel other people to enjoy your preferences.

It is not usually seven bucks when you are out with a decent size group in a city for a few hours.

> In my life, I have been in groups where if a few people consumed some relatively more expensive food or drinks, they are responsible enough to take care of that.

Ideally, but many times I have been out where it needs to be brought up. But that does not make one a penny pincher.

> Also, when you go out with a large group, you do tip the wait staff generously, right?

How is this relevant?

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