Sonny
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DeSoto, TX
Posts: 224
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Yeah, see, we're still going round and round about the meaning of words -- first "weapon", now "baby".
The point of my earlier post is that language has to define things for the people speaking and listening or it's just noise and confusion -- a Tower of Babel. That's why punctuation and grammar exist and that's why dictionaries exist: so we can have a common understanding about what human mouth noises and little written shapes on paper mean, and thus communicate.
All our differences in political ideas are being polluted and made intractable by this disagreement about what words mean. This is the doing of propagandists, who might as well also be called "confusers". The result is, people are not communicating. This situation benefits propagandists, but everyone else is getting screwed over and our politics is getting screwed over.
We all need to be aware that this situation is harmful and try to get the meaning of words straight. Then we can solve problems and not just misunderstand one another. The sequence of events has to be: (1) agree what words mean, and (2) then use them to communicate.
Mn wants to decide on his own that a firearm is only a weapon after it has been used as a weapon, and that any other use of the word shows anti-gun bias. But that is not the meaning of "weapon". "Weapon" isn't a narrower idea than he wants it to be; it is a much [i]broader[i] idea.
That's the definition of the word in the English language. Nothing to rail against or even disagree about.
The same goes for "baby" here, obviously.
Merriam-Webster defines the word so we can agree for the purpose of communication:
1a (1) : an extremely young child; especially : infant
(2) : an extremely young animal
b : the youngest of a group
2a : one that is like a baby (as in behavior)
b : something that is one's special responsibility, achievement, or interest
That is why we use terms like zygote, embryo, or fetus to describe a different thing than a baby.
Blow off the meaning of words and suddenly you are not eating a bowl of cereal... you are a cowardly criminal mass murderer of future wheat plants. Propaganda in da house, folks...
We need look no further than this discussion board to see the importance of rigor in the use of language. All of the tips and tricks and descriptions of fixes and mods are examples of technical writing, the goal of which is to say something very specific and not subject to confusion or misunderstanding. The definition of words has to be tightly adhered to, otherwise the communication isn't useful and can even be harmful.
Technical writing is a challenge. It takes education and effort. Some folks have a knack for it and some don't. But not caring and being sloppy and willful in the use of language has consequences... all bad.
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