Webster's dictionary

That's how he thinks languages are made. In wayne-scales' mind, everything is reduced to a philosophical logic problem. I can just imagine him walking around a supermarket...

Was $10, now $8. - Hah, this is merely reductio ad absurdam.
America's most popular store! - Argumentum ad populum, my dear fellow.
Lower prices than Walmart! - Tut tut... ad hominem and therefore irrelevant.

 

Haha, this one got me.

 

I made up a word, I hope it catches on...

Kabillion, the number of pieces left after an explosion or similar.

"The forum was fractured into a kabillion opinions."

 

1. Incorrect.
2. Correct.
3. Incorrect.

Looks like 'stool' to me.

I see it as highly suspicious that the (e.g.) Greek etymological roots of words seemed to be constructed in such a way so as to represent what they were naming. On a more obvious level, it is the reason why 'kazooist' is actually a word, meaning one who plays the kazoo, and 'banana' means something different from that. An ancient Greek word for human, is 'anthropōi' (obviously wherefrom we get words like 'anthropology'), and for a reason; not just randomly: it distinguishes people from other animals as ones who reason or investigate into what they observe (opōe), which becomes anathrōn ha opōe: anthrōpos. People, of course, can just makes words up; but people can cut with pillows or butter with a fork and it has no affect on what is the best tool for these activities. That's why, in your own example, "assrest" denotes a chair, and "chirpchurpBANGA!!!" doesn't (consider if someone would know that either of these words meant chair without you having to tell them, nowadays). These complex names are obviously made up of elements, and it makes sense that they're is a reason why such-and-such is the letter used in a certain word, especially if, as you say, it was chosen on a whim and so each had as much chance of being chosen for a certain representation than another, because why wouldn't you choose one which seemed to you to best fit what you were naming? Greek again (because it's the only book I have handy): the letter 'r' was chosen to represent motion, because of its pronunciation in Greek: 'rhein' ('flowing'), 'rhoē' ('flow'), 'tromos' ('trembling'), 'trechein' ('running'); 'd' and't' for a halting, because of the compression and abrupt stop of the tongue: 'stasis' ('rest'), 'desmos' ('shackling'); 'l' (just an in English) for its gliding quality (also, just as in English: 'gliding'): 'olisthanein' ('glide'), 'leoin ('smooth'), 'liparon' ('sleek'), 'kollōdes' ('viscous' {and also notice that 'k' and 'v' are used at the beginning of the word in Greek and English, respectively; both harsh sounds; and 'l' and 'cou' is used in the middle, as soft, smooth sounds}); and there are many more examples like this that show that this process (far from being arbitrary, as I hope no-one will try to say simply because of my less-than-copious amount of examples) was central in choosing names.

Assuming you don't mean that knives cut and toasters toast because of convention, haven't you ever seen a gesture which you've never seen before that and known immediately what was trying to be conveyed ('go away', 'stay', 'boring', 'frustrating', &c.)? I sometimes hear words that I've never heard before, and know immediately what the gist of what it means is. Also, I'm sure it hasn't escaped your attention that the ancient tally marks (which turned into numerals; Roman, for example) directly correspond (up to four) to how many it is that they're counting (primitive man, and even modern man, has trouble quickly distinguishing between four and five items, or any amount larger if the numbers are close enough; and that why '5' is '/' and 'V', &c.; however, this is in no way illogical: see the 'five bar gate' symbol), and this is the logical connection I'm saying must be present in language for it to make sense. I realize (as I'm such you and Smuel do too) that we're in fact talking about slightly different notions of language, where yours is wider than mine, in that mine is contained within yours; however, were this to be the case of language in esse, it would be absolutely indistinguishable from any sound, movement, shape, picture, &c., whatsoever, if any of these can ever have any meaning at all; and thus, what can be accepted as language becomes anything and everything, and therefore, nothing, as a distinction would be impossible; so a confinement within a system is necessary if the concept of language is to have any meaning (just like maths, science, art, &c.); and this must be, further, based on logic by definition (if anything can be said to be a word at all through its sound, it must have some etymology; and so to 'make up' a meaning for the word necessarily means that it must be incorrect, except by chance; cf. the position vector equation of a circle: 'r = r cos(θ) i + r sin(θ) j', which is in intimate relation to the above, regarding why a logical structure is apodeictic, in that all the values are on the circle, whether one knows it or not).

 

Funny that loanwords are missing from this discussion. Anyone up for sushi?

Also...

*Steals*

 

Mr Scales is right in so far as when language was first being formed from a series of grunts, the speakers would have made great use of onomatopoeia when choosing to represent objects and concepts in sound.

However, once language got going, it then started to evolve largely independently of any kind of rational process, being far more influenced by coincidence and fashion. There isn't a "correct" set of words and an "incorrect" set of words - there are just words. Some of them catch on, some of them don't. If the word "chirpchurpbanga" spreads and comes into common usage and everyone understands that it refers to something you sit on, then it will be just as valid a word as "stool". And no amount of protest from uptight etymologists can change that.

 

I agree with you, WS, that it would be nice if people were more disciplined and logical, BUT, they're not. Too bad for you if you think the words aren't really words because the speakers aren't as erudite as you.

I recommend Sanskrit, if you are a lover of logic and language. Apart from anything else, no-one's going to sully it with their variants: it's been formalised for millennia.

As a linguist, I see English transforming itself into a rich and structured language, but also shedding a lot of ancient history along the way. Frankly, Greek and Latin etymology can wither and die, IMO. Give me old school Indo-European roots and let chaos reign!

Oh, and I maintain language was up and running aeons before upright apes began pointing and grunting. Language is bigger than our species, and definitely bigger than one man's opinion about what language ought to be.

 

Why?

Why?

 

Because the meaning and validity of words is determined by convention.

Or, to put it another way - why not?

 

Since when, though? Do you have a reason for thinking that, beyond 'it just is'?

 

Language is a means of sideways information transfer, much as early life was transferring DNA from one cell to another without regards to separate species or anything like that. It's only natural that a system based on logic turned into something else during its time of existence, it's a form of evolution. Note how simple language is getting these days, what with text messages and people "understanding" spelling errors despite those errors leaving the language in the wrong format...I don't know. Hell, I don't know much of anything these days.

 

You're exactly right; this is my point; however, I imagine that you're using the word 'evolution' in the same way people generalize the term 'deduction', in that you demonstrated it to be devolution.

 

It's the painful truth. Language is getting simpler, rather than more complex. It all has to do with sideways information transfer. More people speak english than any other language these days, and on top of that there are newer (and more stupid) words being added to the vernacular daily. Texting is really the bane of all logical progression of language, but it's a natural bi-product of a desire to simplify communication; rather than educate others in the proper spelling of commonly used words, there are now ways to incorporate the sounds of numbers, as well as what numbers resemble which letters, to spell words which used to be the foundation of conversational english. I suppose they still are the foundation, but it appears to be crumbling away into something wholly unintelligible. Give it another one hundred-fifty years, and we'll be grunting to one another while our thumbs clumsily arrange sparse letters next to numbers to equate the same sound a word used to make.

 

For anyone who's familiar with quite basic physics, the above concept (which, I'm sure, isn't doubted by anyone) is essentially a proof that actual language must be based in logic, through the concept of equilibrium.

If I'm understanding what you mean by this, I don't quite see the problem...

 

Since always. Geez - how do YOU think language is formed? That Dark Elf's ancestors originally had a big meeting and decided that "stol" sounded like a very "sitting on" kind of word, so they would use that for items of seating?

As a human being, I've been participating in the evolution of language all my life. For example, I now use the word "google" to mean that I'm searching for information online. I happen to know that the origins of the word have nothing to do with searching or information, because it was origrinally a pun on the term "googol", and that it's just a coincidence that Google's search engine happened to become dominant, and also that "googling" has a nicer ring to it than "altavistaing". And in a few decades time it's entirely possible that everyone will be using the word "google" to mean "search for information" even if the company has disappeared by then, and you'll be frothing at the mouth because "google" isn't a properly derived word for searching, and dammit, why don't people LISTEN when you TELL them how they OUGHT to speak?

The number of languages is reducing, but any given language is getting more complex. The average office worker today knows more words than Shakespeare did.

This has to be the most misguided attempt to apply armchair science I have ever seen.

 

Assuming you actually understand what it is you are saying, the above contains no assault on anything I've said.

Same applies, as above.

Just to cease iterating, I'm going to ask you to explain what I meant, explain what you meant, and then explain the problem with it.

 

The average office worker lives within the benefit of a language that has been growing and evolving for the past 410 years, this doesn't make them any more impressive than a man who wrote and adapted numerous classical plays and indeed invented the prefix "un."
What office worker do you know that invented a damned prefix?