Re: "Gender-free masculine pronoun"? Absurd. [was: Re: Crossposting[was:Re: Traditional gender-free "he" [was: Re: "16 and 276 are 292"?No. [was: Re: Lack of vocabulary in English?]]]]

From: Peter T. Daniels (grammatim_at_worldnet.att.net)
Date: 03/17/05 

Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:04:33 GMT

Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
>
> Jacques Guy wrote:
> > Carmen L. Abruzzi wrote:
> >
> >> And of course "words" is in quotes, as it wasn't really words the Boy
> >> was responding to, but sounds.
> >
> >
> >> Sorry, I guess this rather kills the joke, but hey, the point is that
> >> even when animals appear to understand language, they may be
> >> responding to certain sounds or gestures or intonations or whatever.
> >
> >
> > And what do you think words are made of, if not sounds?
>
> Hmm, I suppose you have me there. Your reasoning is sound enough.
> Words are made of sounds, so sounds are words. Hmm. It's like, oh,
> like, say, crates are made of wood, and crates are boxes, so boxes are
> made of wood. Yes, it all seems sound enough to me. Or is it that wood
> makes boxes, so crates are made of wood? I'm so confused, I think I
> should just go hide in a cave somewhere.

Or in a cardboard box? With a styrofoam egg crate. 

-- 
Peter T. Daniels                       grammatim@att.net

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