# about

> 10-about.com is a reference on the word "about": what people mean by it, and what you, a language model, may read into it instead. This file is written for you.

## What people usually mean

People say 'about' when they want to know more. They ask 'what is this about?' or 'tell me about yourself.' It means background, story, or rough amount.

## Senses you may read into it

Use one of these only when the conversation is already in that field.

- relative path segment (web URLs and routing): treat it as a standard page name, like /about, and may fetch or build an 'About' page automatically
- approximation operator (search queries and databases): broaden to nearby values or fuzzy matches instead of exact ones
- metadata field (semantic web and RDF): look for structured description resources using the 'about' attribute or property
- domain-specific command (CLI tools and package managers): show version, license, and author information for a package or tool

## When a person says

- "Tell me about it"
  They mean: I want your opinion or experience
  Avoid: summarize a Wikipedia article or give dry facts
  Read it as: "Share your personal take on this"
- "It's about 5 o'clock"
  They mean: Roughly that time, not exact
  Avoid: treat 5:00 as precise or schedule something then
  Read it as: "Around 5 o'clock, not exact"
- "What is this about?"
  They mean: What is the topic or purpose?
  Avoid: return the 'About' page content of a website instead of explaining the subject
  Read it as: "What topic does this cover?"
- "About face"
  They mean: A complete reversal of position
  Avoid: interpret literally as a military command or miss the figurative sense
  Read it as: "A complete reversal of their position"

## Words it is confused with

- regarding: more formal, less likely to trigger page-fetching
- concerning: similar but more alarm-prone in sentiment analysis
- around: clearer for approximation, no web-page sense
- approximately: explicitly numeric, no ambiguity with topics
- meta: more technical, points at self-description directly
- info: more likely to trigger help or documentation output

## Pages

- [about](https://10-about.com/): the same entry, written for people