Posted by alexandra_k on March 27, 2005, at 20:51:21
In reply to Lou's reply to alexandra_k-fltbgchese » alexandra_k, posted by Lou Pilder on March 27, 2005, at 19:43:11
> Could you clarify what it would mean if the person {did not feel that way} and referred to the person as the big cheese?
Then I guess they would be being ironic or sarcastic. Though gentle joking might be somewhere in between... But with gentle joking the intent is friendly and respectful..
>And with that, could you clarify as to how one could know that they felt that way?
You could ask 'did you mean that to be mocking or sarcastic?'. Which may give them the chance to respond accordingly. It is a tricky matter to figure out peoples intentions (what they are trying to achieve by their use of language). Here the principle of charity is relevant: when in doubt try to assume the best.
>The accepted standard meaning seems pretty clear cut. When an expression has a widely accepted meaning, it seems only fair to interpret it by that unless it is clearly not meant that way, don't you think?Yup.
Principle of charity :-)>Otherwise everyone would be speaking their own language and their own idiom, and meaningful conversation would be difficult at best.
Indeed!
There are a couple of different things going on with language...
- There is word (lexical) meaning.
- There is sentance (syntactical) meaning.
- There is speakers meaning (what the speaker means by their words) - which is aka pragmatic meaning or meaning in context.The first two are standard meanings. We need to agree to use words with their standard meanings as best we can. If everybody used words with their own idiosyncratic use in mind then communication would indeed break down.
Wittgenstein famously argued that there could not be such a thing as an idiolect (a one-person language) without the backdrop of a common language. It would be impossible to develop an idiolect without reference to a common language.
But I won't burden you guys with the details :-)
I guess we just need to go with standard (ie literal word and sentance) meaning unless the context clearly indicates otherwise.
Charity and co.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:476145
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20050323/msgs/476440.html