Re: 3 shades and you are out?

From: Just Playing (gms2004_at_lycos.com)
Date: 10/09/04 

Date: 9 Oct 2004 07:30:48 -0700

Kamerynn <idon'tdoemail@sorry.com> wrote in message news:<10me9mft2gf8v59@corp.supernews.com>...
> Just Playing wrote:
>
> > A description, word, noun, category, class, etc. can be characterized
> > by any criterion in 2 opposite ways, good or bad, up or down, left or
> > right, etc.
> > Each of these 2 ways can then be differentiated by 3 degrees, shades
> > as in good, better, best or bad, worse, worst.
> > What happens after we exhaust all these combinations?
> > Do we have to create a new description, word, noun, category, class?
> > If 3 is the number of differences, shades you can describe in one of
> > the opposites of a description, word, noun, class, category, it seems
> > that whenever you have more differences, shades you either have to use
> > a different criterion to describe it or create a new word,
> > description, noun, class, category.
>
> Kam:
> The words you list allow for open ended differentiation,
> not just three degrees of it. We could assert that B is better
> than A, and that C is better than B, and that D is... and so
> on. We can thus conclude that C is better than A, and we know
> that the degrees of "betterness" between C and A must be greater
> than the degrees between B and A because C is better than B.

Just Playing

Thank you for the references but at this point I am just playing..

JP

>
> > So, paraphrasing the 3 strikes and you out, can we say to a word,
> > category that after 3 shades you are out, and create a new word,
> > category?
>
> Kam:
> What these words do is assess something as relative to
> something else (better or worse than it). A better question,
> I think, is are there similar assessments (say, assessments
> of greatness or goodness) that aren't relative, but absolute?

Just Playing

This would be a different subject all together.

JP

>
> > Or if we do not create another word or category but use instead
> > another criterion with the same 2 opposite ways, how many criteria can
> > we use before the number of combinations become too large for normal
> > communication?
> > If these assumptions are correct can we look at vocabulary and try to
> > analyze it along these lines? Or it has been done already?

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