Re: Expressiveness

Joachim Pense:

Am 9 Mar 2006 09:08:13 GMT schrieb Helmut Richter:

I do not know about this particular example but I have sometimes the
suspicion that the fine distinctions of meanings are not being lost by the
sloppy language community but invented by hair-splitting language mavens.

You mean the distinctions never existed in spoken language, and were
introduced by nit-pickers to get more nits to pick?

I mean that I do not know about this particular example ("scheinbar" vs.
"anscheinend") but for some other examples, for instance the two I
mentioned, it is hard to believe that there was ever a time when there was
consensus among the speakers about the distinction of meanings.

There are many possible scenarios, for example:

- one word being a special case of the other, and nit-pickers declaring
the general word wrong for the special situation: "schwer" is heavy to
move, be it a bag in the airport or a problem towards a solution. For
the second situation, the special word "schwierig" exists. Does that
automatically render the general word "schwer" wrong in this case?

- distinction only in the language of experts who, after developing their
jargon, insist that it be taken over by the non-experts, e.g. "Hahn"
(water tap) must be "Ventil", "Dorn" (thorn, as of a rose) must be
"Stachel"

- specialised meaning of common words in some jargon. E.g.,
"grundsätzlich" means "as a matter of principle" but does not say how
rigidly the principle is to be applied. In common language of ordinary
people, it has a rather rigid flavour. When someone says "ich verleihe
grundsätzlich kein Geld" (as a matter of principle, I do not lend
money), it means that this person has taken a rigid decision not to lend
money. In administrative language, however, "grundsätzlich" means the
way to act unless there are important reasons to act otherwise.

Besides that, there may be the case that two words with clearly distinct
meaning are used interchangingly by the speakers so that the distinction
gets lost.

I mean that, whenever some people insist on correct language use, this
last scenario is only one of many, and not even the most probable one.

But it is a nuisance to hear someone you don't know well say: "das ist
scheinbar wahr" and you cannot tell if he wants to express that he doesn't
believe it's true, or that he does, though is not sure.

As you do not know whether you interlocutor uses the language the way you
consider correct, you can't tell anyway. This may be a nuisance, but you
cannot help.

Helmut Richter
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Help needed with clue from CROSSWORD
    ... >> side simply to cite authority, for example the late Henry Fowler's>> neat ... >I have no oobjection to the language developing as it may. ... group agree" is both current and allows the distinction of nuances that I ... Now that is an example of good criticism. ...
    (rec.puzzles.crosswords)
  • Re: As the Crow flies.
    ... nor did he make the distinction between high level and low level. ... along the lines of "Real programmers don't eat quiche?" ... your program and 2) understand machine language. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Is behavior of += intentional for int?
    ... In context of OO programming, the distinction ... Because 3 is a fundamental bit of data that the hardware knows how ... You could make a language that behaved as he wants, ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: Possible Record for Slow on the Uptake
    ... Most English speakers do not notice the distinction between ... language, even though the distinction is significant in some ... the same phoneme since if you substitute them they sound funny ... Hence "minimal pair". ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: Beyond Incompleteness
    ... This reveals a tension between the Godelian and Tarskian language models. ... Note here that the distinction between "distinguishable" and "incommensurable" must be made, for no distinctions can be realised 'between', or from, incommensurable domains or objects. ... Yet we could go further than Tarski and announce that some statements do not belong in any system, whether such mooted systems are incommensurable or not; which points to a failure of a system rather than to any particular group of statements. ... Then, in incomplete theories, he alludes to there being true statements about the objects that aren't provable in any way, so at once, he denies there being any truth, then demands there is unknown truth. ...
    (sci.logic)