Thanks, Mike. Bad news for me, I guess. My message as it came back to me
via
Databack was broken up, and the copy via you was a basket of stammering
shards
(see below). what are you on -- a Mac or a PC with Windows?
In a message dated 3/24/08 1:59:51 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I use MS Outlook Express ver. 6 to manage my email. Your post below has
broken paragraphs in the "preview" window, but if I open the email into
its
own window the text has mostly solid paragraphs. About three lines seem
to
have exceeded some maximum length and resulted in a dangling word or two.
An example of this is:
> "works" in Ohio but not in the Andes because it "has meaning" only
> where
> English is
> regularly spoken. But why is that? Why doesn't it "have meaning" in a
(I don't know how teh above will appear.)
Mike Mallory
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 9:42 AM
Subject: Feedback from listers needed on this test.
> I've been whining to Databack that postings arrive with the paragraph
> shattered by line-breaks so I get a long line, then a line with two
words,
> then a
> long line, then a one-word line. But it now occurs to me that it may
> not
> be
> Databack's doing, but, rather, the result of a weakness in my AOL
> server.
> So I now
> ask listers to tell me if they receive this posting with solid
paragraphs,
> or
> paragraphs shattered by inapt line breaks. (The paragraphs at the very
> bottom
> have line breaks because they were not keyboarded by me, but copied
> from
a
> received posting.) Many thanks to those who report back -- Cheerskep
>
> Derek quoted Cheerskep:
>
> "If I utter "doggy" to a shepherd in the remote Andes, no picture of a
dog
> will arise in his mind. But if 'doggy' "has a meaning", why doesn't
that
> happen? Because he hasn't been exposed to repeated association of the
> sound,
> "doggy", with real dogs that his parents pointed at when they said the
> word."
>
> Derek then responded:
>
> "Isn't the answer to this just that a word has meaning only in its
> relevant
> speech community?"
>
> But, for openers, this makes the unwarranted assumption that there
> exists
> an
> entity, or property, or action that Derek believes he "refers to" when
> he
> says
> 'meaning'.
>
> And he is required to "account for" the fact that this "meaning" of a
word
> exists only in a "relevant speech community". Derek would say that
'doggy'
> "works" in Ohio but not in the Andes because it "has meaning" only
> where
> English is
> regularly spoken. But why is that? Why doesn't it "have meaning" in a
> non-relevant speech community?
>
> It's reasonable to ask Derek to describe as precisely as he can what he
> has
> in mind when he says, "a word has meaning" -- in particular what he has
in
> mind
> with the word 'meaning' and the word 'has'.
>
> In my previous posting, '"Signs", "meanings" and associations', I
> argued
> that
> the alleged "referent" of 'meaning' is a chimera, there are no such
> things. I
> claimed to "account for" everything we think of as "communication"
without
> ever having to cite a "meaning". An atheist might say that to assume
> the
> existence of "meanings" is as unwarranted as assuming the existence of
> souls or
> guardian angels.
>
> My argument also "accounts for" why 'doggy' draws a blank in the Andes:
> The
> shepherd was never subjected to the repeated juxtaposition of the
> utterance
> "doggy" and a parent's pointing at a real dog -- thus affecting an
> association in
> the shepherd's mind. Everything about communication that Derek would
> require
> three entities to explain -- a sign (e.g. an utterance), a meaning, and
> a
> consequently stirred notion -- I'd explain with two: the sign, and the
> notion
> summoned up by the associating mind..
>
> Derek's would-be explanation of why "'Doggy' has meaning only in
> English-speaking countries" raises more (unanswerable) questions than
> it
> answers.
>
> I should spend a moment on a usage of 'to mean' and 'meaning' that will
> always be with us and is allowable if serviceably restricted.
>
> All instances of the verb form, 'to mean', when ascribed to an entity
that
> is
> non-sentient -- that can't have notions, intentions -- are wrong
> because
> they
> "refer to" a chimerical action, and they are dangerous because they
> lead
> us
> to assume many other chimerical entities. Inert ink, and even the sound
> waves
> of utterances, do not "mean". They are the occasion for all sorts of
> wildly
> varying notion in our wildly varying minds. (Our minds vary in their
> receiving
> apparatus, their store of remembered notions from which the mind will
> retrieve
> things to associate with a newly received sensation, and the retrieving
> apparatus.)
>
> Derek cites public signage that, it seems to him, "have meanings which
> sometimes stretch beyond a given speech community - e.g. a basic image
> of
> a man (and
> not a woman) on what looks like it could be a toilet door can be found
> in
> lots of countries. Arrows for pointing are also pretty well
> universal."
> But the
