Terms, their meanings history and implications. (The Semantics thread)

Terms, regardless of how they are used, must always have their meaning clear if people are arguing. This is important if one wishes to debate productively and efficiently.

Regardless, fact is... sometimes some terms have their exact meaning and "correct" use debated, this is called "Arguing Semantics" and it's usually looked down upon.

However... once in a while it becomes inevitable that certain topics need to delve into semantics, and other times such arguments can actually produce some interesting conversation.

This thread was made so that such conversations can happen without derailing other threads.

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Good idea for a thread. Cheers for making it.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

I suppose the first thing to be discussed will be the terms minority and majority, right?

Thanks!

I think I will be linking this to those threads as well. I noticed they often tend to fall in this.

Edit: Just to be clear, any of you can send a link to this thread as well if you feel the people in that thread tend to fall into this. In fact, I encourage it.

edited 5th Jun '15 1:55:02 PM by SaintDeltora

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

I get the feeling that 90% of this thread will be "America vs. The World", dealing with word connotations that are specific to the U.S. or one of its sub-cultures. (On that note, it might also be a good idea to make a general U.S. culture thread too.)

As for minority vs. majority, the point I made here still stand. Words can acquire different subtle connotations in different countries. The nature of a common language like English is that it doesn't stay common forever.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

The thing about mayority and minority is....weird as hell, for what I get, its not about number but about power in diferent sphere of public life(money,representation,etc) which it ties with the original question on that thread "why women are treat like a minority even when we are half of the world"

Im wrong?

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

That's the point of contention. For some people it is about numbers, for others it's about power.

"And the Bunny nails it!" ~ Gabrael "If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we." ~ Cyran

The U.S. having a longer history of representative government than most cases, of course, means that there's a greater expected correlation between "number of people" and "amount of power". Hence the whole debate.

Expergiscēre cras, medior quam hodie. (Awaken tomorrow, better than today.)

I've always seen it as being about numbers, unless qualified as something else somehow. Presented as a fact, it's a numerical description. If it's presented as a comparison ("like a minority"), it could mean something else, since it suggests other connotations to it and invites thought about why that is.

More generally about semantics, I find that complaining that some people start to argue the words rather than the argument is counterproductive and frequently hypocritical. If you don't move on with the actual argument yourself (which you made yourself), you shouldn't complain that others aren't.

Sometimes it's relevant, often it isn't, but I often find it interesting irregardless.

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I wonder if "irregardless" will ever become accepted. The prescriptivist in me screams at the thought.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

All a term or word needs is consistent general acceptance. If enough people define a word incorrectly, for long enough, then their definition will become correct. The rule about the double negative, for instance, was imposed on English by a mathematician, who felt that since it worked for numbers it ought to work for words as well, completely ignoring the way people actually used double negatives (which was for emphasis). Hundreds of years later, while now considered "formally" incorrect, people STILL use double negatives for emphasis (and are completely understood by one and all to be doing so), just as they did in Chaucer's time. Language is essentially a living entity; we can't really impose rules on it, we can only observe how it behaves.

edited 5th Jun '15 5:19:26 PM by Robbery

That's why I specified that it's the prescriptivist in me doing the screaming. I learned English as a second language and people in that position tend to have a strong prescriptivist instinct. I'm also studying linguistics so I know it's more reasonable to try to concentrate on the descriptivist side. If you're annoyed when I'm going all prescriptivist on you you can always take comfort in the fact that I'll be proved wrong by history eventually.

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Oh, I'm by no means annoyed; I apologize if I gave that impression. I was just venting at large.

And I was using the general "you" - and on a similarly general level, using myself as an example of my type of occasional prescriptivist.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

I don't think I've seen "irregardless" used seriously. It does frequently appear in style guides, grammar, and other texts about language itself as an example, or as a joke, but used for itself? Can't recall ever seeing it.

I'm not actually sure in which meaning I mean it here. Probably both. Semantics is certainly interesting if it's relevant, but it can also be interesting for its own sake.

Whether I fall on the prescriptive or descriptive side I don't really care. What I think is important, especially if you're trying to present a point, is that you use the type of language the other part expects you to. Even if you don't see eye to eye on the actual point, at least try to meet them halfway on what language you're using, and don't try to push that onto them as well, since that only creates yet another point of contention.

Also, gotta love that out of three paragraphs, the one that was responded to was the least relevant to the previous discussion, and on top of that it was about a single otherwise irrelevant word. And it's still on topic.

edited 5th Jun '15 6:12:53 PM by AnotherDuck

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"I don't think I've seen "irregardless" used seriously."

Ah, well, if you were to search on my avatar name and the word "irregardless" you would find at least one example. I used to use it all the time.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

What do you mean by used seriously? I mean, I use it because I find it amusing. Which is why I usually remember it before remembering "regardless". Of course, me not being a native English speaker, I'm not actually sure how much worth my opinions on the language hold.

edited 7th Jun '15 8:21:20 AM by Victin

When I first saw Bush use it I thought it was a parody mocking his poor grasp of the English language. Since then I've found out that the word is actually older than that, and fairly common in certain parts of the US. (BTW my reaction to hearing "nuclear" pronounced as "nucular" was the same: I thought it was a parody.)

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

I think the last I heard of Bush (a week or two ago, I believe) he was mocking his own use of it. It was that dual-Bush speech, by the way. Which is pretty funny. Edit: Here he is.

To me, "irregardless" has strong connotations to showing bad language one way or another, which means when it's used for a different purpose than its literal meaning. That's kind of what I meant by "not seriously". Because it sounds funny, it shows poor grasp of language, or it's used as an example of poor language. I know the word is in actual use, but I've just not heard it. I'm not from an English speaking country (as a first language), so I don't encounter it as much as someone from the UK or USA probably would.

I've also heard it can both mean the same as "regardless" and its inverse, depending on who and where it's used.

edited 7th Jun '15 2:40:06 PM by AnotherDuck

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I am blatantly stealing a joke I read online because I am a crafty bastard.

But I think Homosexuality is wrong. It is either Homophilophilia or Idemsexuality. That mixing of Greek and Latin roots shit is not godly.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Because English is messed up enough as it is?

edited 8th Jun '15 8:46:56 AM by AnotherDuck

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Does it bother anyone else that flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

As a representative of people who learned English as a second language I'll tell you that that sort of thing is really frustrating. A language that sets down rules and then follows them is easy to learn. English is usually pretty good about it but "inflammable" is a good example of when the language just decides to break your will.

So, yeah, it does bother me.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Irregardless and inflammable and all the other grammatically contradictory words in the English language amuse me. They tend to be good reminders of how arbitrary language is as a whole, and linguistic junkies ripping their hair out at the lolwut-ness of it all is a plus.

No offense, Best Of.

"Flammable" works because we all know what a flame is.

"Inflammable" works for me because my first language is a Latin/Romance language, I instinctively know what "Inflame" means. As an English word, though, it logically should mean "non-flammable".

So, while it doesn't bother me specifically, I can definitely see why so many are bothered by it. It's a language (English) going against its own rules to accommodate the convention of another language (Latin).