Leo Grin wrote:
An impassioned plea for declaring literary discussion and analysis an exact
science, and giving every word one single and unambiguous meaning.
Unfortunately, it isn't exact science, and they don't have single,
unambiguous meanings. There is no *absolutely* correct way to look at a
literary work -- even a single word -- so there will always be a need to
introduce qualifiers into the discussion. (As one whose work involves, in
part, the analysis and interpretation of statistics, I would also suggest
-- not declare, but suggest -- that even the "exact sciences" are not as
"exact" as all that, and there is considerable room for qualification in
speaking of our results.)
In your "over-analysis" of Scotty's phrasing, you make some assumptions
that might be called into question, at least by those of us inclined to the
over-analysis of literary stylings. As an example:
>Now you said: "That is certainly true to a good degree."
>
>In this instance, I would say that if "that" is true only "to a good
degree", then it isn't
>"certainly true" at all. And what exactly is a "degree" here, and how
many degrees qualify as
>"good"? Until these questions are answered, or until the language is
cleared up to the point where
>asking these questions isn't necessary, then the statement means NOTHING.
Very frustrating when you
>are trying to figure out what someone is actually saying.
Here you are assuming that "certainly true" must mean that Scotty is 100%
certain of the truth of the statement in question (which I do not recall,
and the original message is probably on the home computer). But the way I
read it, Scotty is certain that the statement is "true to a good degree."
There are, believe it or not, degrees of truth. You are familiar, are you
not, with the old, old concept of "exceptions" to a "rule"? Or are you one
of those tiresome literalists who wasted all of our time in class arguing
that "If it's a rule there can be absolutely no exceptions, ever"?
"Degree" has a fairly lengthy entry in the dictionary; one item is "the
extent, measure, or scope of an action, condition, or relation." As to its
relation to "truth," a thing can be absolutely true under all conditions
and circumstances, in which case we might say it was 100% true. But it
might be true only about 80% of the time (to pick a number out of the air),
which I would say is a "good degree" of truth. It might be true only half
the time, which doesn't strike me as an especially "good degree" of truth
(or probability), though others might disagree, and I suppose that it would
be a "good degree" of truth in some circumstances. Given that you seem to
rigidly insist that "truth" can have but one state or condition, and that
is absolute, you must also agree with those who say that anyone who
consciously attacks another and kills them, no matter the circumstances, is
guilty of first-degree murder? States tend to recognize "degrees" of
culpability for the death of another -- why can't "truth" have varying
"degrees"?
The statement seems very clear to me. Scotty seems to me to have been
saying "What you say seems to me to have a lot of truth to it, although I
am not willing to accept it without qualifications." He said it in fewer
words, though.
You, on the other hand, seem to me to have a fair degree of logorrhea.
Sort of. Maybe.
As to your idea that somehow words have clear, unambiguous meanings that
are always true under any and all circumstances, well, that's horse hockey.
Take a little ramble through the dictionary and notice how many words have
more than one listed meaning. Sometimes these are shades or nuances of
meaning, sometimes they are meanings used by differing disciplines,
sometimes they are meanings that have evolved over the years. There are
actually words that have contradictory meanings (such as "hoi polloi"). Or
what about those words that seem to mean identical things but that we may
understand to have slightly different meanings. The other day my
colleagues and I looked up "impel" and "compel." I was just sure that the
meanings were slightly different, that "impel" related to an internal
motive force and "compel" an external one. But the dictionary definitions
are virtually identical. (Ooops, sorry, I guess they have to be absolutely
word-for-word or else they are not "identical" at all, right?)
The problem is then multiplied many-fold when the words appear in
combination with other words. The reader or auditor has to do some
interpreting. You, for instance, understood "certainly" to modify the word
"true" in Scotty's statement, while I understood it to modify the phrase
"true to a good degree." Who's "right"? I think Scotty would probably say
that my interpretation is truer to what he "meant," but that still doesn't
mean yours is "wrong."
Rusty
