Dragaera

Random thoughts on bois and language

Steve Simmons scs at di.org
Wed Aug 14 21:10:21 PDT 2002

I'm going to happily come down on neither side of this arguement.
As Steven points out, language is mutually agreed-upon symbolism.
As long as those symbols match up between speakers and there is
some reasonably good mapping to reality, that's good enough.

On the other hand, language evolves.  On a different list I'm on,
we're currently discussing the meanings of the words gumboots, gumshoes,
wellies, wellingtons and galoshes; our amusement that they all mean the
same thing; and which of them also means detective, overshoes, a dance, a
song, and a dead British politician (the discussion crew includes a number
of professional linguists, a half-dozen writers, a number of computer
programmers, and a lot of musicians.)  It's all in good fun, and we all
realize the importance of meaning what you say and saying what you mean.

Language will never fully map cleanly to reality, but to fail to try is
to intentionally fail to communicate.  And talking about it will lead to
an ever-shrinking death spiral.  As Zelazny said, `Listen instead to the
Nameless...' (Lord of Light, Sam's parable).
-- 
It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities,
without hour help.
   -- Chuck Pyle 'The Zen Cowboy' http://www.chuckpyle.com/bio.html