I have a pet peeve. A conversation that I have heard far too many times over the years. It is based in the idea that if a language doesn't have a word for something, that the people don't have that concept.
OK, sometimes that's true. No automobiles? Never heard of 'em? Then there's not going to be a word for something nobody's ever thought of. We didn't have a word for "spaceship" until we came up with the idea of spaceships, and even then we just took two words, one for the vast mystery of what's "out there" and one for a vessel that floats on the water, and glommed them together.
So what's up with the mythologies of people so simple that they don't have a word for, say, rape? Or a name for the color orange? Or words for numbers more than three? Does that actually mean they don't have those CONCEPTS?
In most cases, no; that's not what that means. Sure, in the case of equatorial people, they probably couldn't describe snow, but for many such words, the concept exists and can be described. So, Western civilization didn't call the color orange "orange" until the 16th century; they called it yellow-red. Does that mean that they didn't see orange? That they didn't know what it was? Fuck no. That's stupid. They saw the color as clearly as we see yellow-green before we know it's called chartreuse. And then someone comes along and says "That color's called chartreuse" and we go "Oh, cool."
Societies without a word for "rape" may call it, in their language, "assault and forced sexual penetration". People who don't have a word for nine may call it "Three threes". Sort of like we didn't really have a word for thirteen... we just combined three and ten. Does that mean we couldn't count above twelve? Or that we still can't?
My point here is that people need to examine their assumptions about language and concepts, and stop assuming that just because there appears to not be a word for something, that is by no means an indication that the concept doesn't exist or cannot be described. How many times in your life have you been thinking about something, and when you try to describe, say, a set of behaviors or assumptions to another person, they say "OH yeah, that's called "________".
And then you go "Oh cool, there's a word for that!"
In support of this, I'd like to call upon the knowledge of any German speakers on the board... From what I can tell, a lot of their more complex words are simply amalgamations of smaller words, which is why you get words like "Rolltreppenbenutzungshinweise" which means, apparently, "rolling-stairs-use-tips" or "Tips for using the escalator". Ok, that was a silly example.
I think the fallacy Nigel may be referring to is a "savage nobility" trope, where a certain ethnicity doesn't experience an aspect of what we tend to call "human nature" or (more formally) "people are assholes". There's a fantasy that somewhere, there's a race of people who are closer to some sort of idealized paradise where everyone is nice to each other, in spite of biological and psychological evolutionary evidence to the contrary.
Word.
I think sometimes it's not that people can't conceptualize the idea, more than its that they don't want to give it a name because it seems to legitimize it in some manner. I have nothing to back that up, mind you, just an uneducated hunch on my part.
It reminds me of a speech from Six Feet Under, which touches on this idea and I suppose informed my "hunch" above in a sense, since it was an idea I had never really thought about:
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
Agreed, Nigel.
On a similar subject...
I've noticed that when there's not a word for something, it tends to mean general lack of awareness that that concept/experience is common. This means a lot of "You do that too?!" moments between people, and a lot of laughs for stand-up comics who talk about the little quirks we all have but aren't often talked about.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
I think that particular example is explained more by the fact that (historical) cultural norms dictate that women and children are weaker and therefore can be defined by a thing that has traumatized them, whereas men/parents (the "stronger" in both relationships) can rise above such happenings.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
Word.
I think sometimes it's not that people can't conceptualize the idea, more than its that they don't want to give it a name because it seems to legitimize it in some manner. I have nothing to back that up, mind you, just an uneducated hunch on my part.
It reminds me of a speech from Six Feet Under, which touches on this idea and I suppose informed my "hunch" above in a sense, since it was an idea I had never really thought about:
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
The word in English is bereft, in Hebrew shakhol. The English word has come to primarily refer to other types of loss over time, as being bereaved of children has become less common.
Quote from: Epimetheus on January 13, 2011, 07:15:14 PM
Agreed, Nigel.
On a similar subject...
I've noticed that when there's not a word for something, it tends to mean general lack of awareness that that concept/experience is common. This means a lot of "You do that too?!" moments between people, and a lot of laughs for stand-up comics who talk about the little quirks we all have but aren't often talked about.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
I think that particular example is explained more by the fact that (historical) cultural norms dictate that women and children are weaker and therefore can be defined by a thing that has traumatized them, whereas men/parents (the "stronger" in both relationships) can rise above such happenings.
How does that explain "windower"?
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:20:52 PM
Quote from: Epimetheus on January 13, 2011, 07:15:14 PM
Agreed, Nigel.
On a similar subject...
I've noticed that when there's not a word for something, it tends to mean general lack of awareness that that concept/experience is common. This means a lot of "You do that too?!" moments between people, and a lot of laughs for stand-up comics who talk about the little quirks we all have but aren't often talked about.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
I think that particular example is explained more by the fact that (historical) cultural norms dictate that women and children are weaker and therefore can be defined by a thing that has traumatized them, whereas men/parents (the "stronger" in both relationships) can rise above such happenings.
How does that explain "widower"?
Fuck. Missed that. :oops:
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:20:23 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
Word.
I think sometimes it's not that people can't conceptualize the idea, more than its that they don't want to give it a name because it seems to legitimize it in some manner. I have nothing to back that up, mind you, just an uneducated hunch on my part.
It reminds me of a speech from Six Feet Under, which touches on this idea and I suppose informed my "hunch" above in a sense, since it was an idea I had never really thought about:
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
The word in English is bereft, in Hebrew shakhol. The English word has come to primarily refer to other types of loss over time, as being bereaved of children has become less common.
Really? My dictionary says the english word "bereave" comes from the Old English and originally meant to be deprived of something in general. I have no idea about the Hebrew word though.
However if you are right, good to know.
Quote from: Epimetheus on January 13, 2011, 07:15:14 PM
Agreed, Nigel.
On a similar subject...
I've noticed that when there's not a word for something, it tends to mean general lack of awareness that that concept/experience is common. This means a lot of "You do that too?!" moments between people, and a lot of laughs for stand-up comics who talk about the little quirks we all have but aren't often talked about.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
I think that particular example is explained more by the fact that (historical) cultural norms dictate that women and children are weaker and therefore can be defined by a thing that has traumatized them, whereas men/parents (the "stronger" in both relationships) can rise above such happenings.
Women and men both lose children.
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
I can relate to this, as I have experienced what some would see as a cultural "disconnect" or lack of mutual verbiage to describe a common experience with someone from halfway around the world. In Afghanistan, at least when I first met my husband, there was no word for "girlfriend." You were either a prostitute, a relative, a fiancee or a wife. If you were dating a man, you could not be called anything put a prostitute/lover/mistress, fiancee or wife.
This was very confining for me, for obvious reasons. Especially as my husband, to save my reputation from all over Afghanistan (because news flies fast over there), he never told anyone about me until we were engaged. And we were together for a long time before that happened.
Since Afghanistan has now been "invaded" by more Western visitors who have brought with them their customs and ways of living, I'm betting that right now there's a word in Afghanistan for "girlfriend," and I'm betting it sounds an awful lot like "girlfriend." That's often how language works, by the way. When a culture or society adopts a concept into its lexicon, they often adopt the word the concept was taken from, or the language it was popularized in. (The French have notoriously hated this.) That doesn't mean the concept/entity wasn't there before, but its accessibility can often be increased by using the less indigenous word. I can postulate a bunch of reasons for this (highlighting it as a more foreign or new concept, etc.), but I am too tired to look it up to see what recent research says.
A good example is a new technological item that was created/invented in a certain language and so retains the verbal construct it was originally created in. Often a lot of the actions surrounding the item show up as borrowed items as well. "Car" and "parking" are two such examples that come to mind.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 13, 2011, 06:53:44 PM
In support of this, I'd like to call upon the knowledge of any German speakers on the board... From what I can tell, a lot of their more complex words are simply amalgamations of smaller words, which is why you get words like "Rolltreppenbenutzungshinweise" which means, apparently, "rolling-stairs-use-tips" or "Tips for using the escalator". Ok, that was a silly example.
I think the fallacy Nigel may be referring to is a "savage nobility" trope, where a certain ethnicity doesn't experience an aspect of what we tend to call "human nature" or (more formally) "people are assholes". There's a fantasy that somewhere, there's a race of people who are closer to some sort of idealized paradise where everyone is nice to each other, in spite of biological and psychological evolutionary evidence to the contrary.
German contains my favorite insult. I don't remember the word itself, but I know that it means "someone who attempts to impregnate electrical sockets" this insulting the person's intelligence and cock size both at once,with a handy, and painful sounding, metaphor.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:24:02 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:20:23 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
Word.
I think sometimes it's not that people can't conceptualize the idea, more than its that they don't want to give it a name because it seems to legitimize it in some manner. I have nothing to back that up, mind you, just an uneducated hunch on my part.
It reminds me of a speech from Six Feet Under, which touches on this idea and I suppose informed my "hunch" above in a sense, since it was an idea I had never really thought about:
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
The word in English is bereft, in Hebrew shakhol. The English word has come to primarily refer to other types of loss over time, as being bereaved of children has become less common.
Really? My dictionary says the english word "bereave" comes from the Old English and originally meant to be deprived of something in general. I have no idea about the Hebrew word though.
However if you are right, good to know.
http://dictionary.reference.com/etymology/bereft
Just as "widow" and "orphan" have other uses, it also means to be deprived in general, but it is the word for a parent who has lost their young, although that context is no longer primary.
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 13, 2011, 06:53:44 PM
In support of this, I'd like to call upon the knowledge of any German speakers on the board... From what I can tell, a lot of their more complex words are simply amalgamations of smaller words, which is why you get words like "Rolltreppenbenutzungshinweise" which means, apparently, "rolling-stairs-use-tips" or "Tips for using the escalator". Ok, that was a silly example.
I think the fallacy Nigel may be referring to is a "savage nobility" trope, where a certain ethnicity doesn't experience an aspect of what we tend to call "human nature" or (more formally) "people are assholes". There's a fantasy that somewhere, there's a race of people who are closer to some sort of idealized paradise where everyone is nice to each other, in spite of biological and psychological evolutionary evidence to the contrary.
Yes, yes, yes.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 07:28:59 PM
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
I had to look it up. Yes! :lol:
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:25:00 PM
Quote from: Epimetheus on January 13, 2011, 07:15:14 PM
Agreed, Nigel.
On a similar subject...
I've noticed that when there's not a word for something, it tends to mean general lack of awareness that that concept/experience is common. This means a lot of "You do that too?!" moments between people, and a lot of laughs for stand-up comics who talk about the little quirks we all have but aren't often talked about.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
I think that particular example is explained more by the fact that (historical) cultural norms dictate that women and children are weaker and therefore can be defined by a thing that has traumatized them, whereas men/parents (the "stronger" in both relationships) can rise above such happenings.
Women and men both lose children.
I was saying that in the parent-child relationship the parents are the stronger, so there'd be a word for orphan but not for bereaved parents. That said, I have now been shown to be wrong about that and about the spouse words, so I concede that point.
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:24:02 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:20:23 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
Word.
I think sometimes it's not that people can't conceptualize the idea, more than its that they don't want to give it a name because it seems to legitimize it in some manner. I have nothing to back that up, mind you, just an uneducated hunch on my part.
It reminds me of a speech from Six Feet Under, which touches on this idea and I suppose informed my "hunch" above in a sense, since it was an idea I had never really thought about:
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
The word in English is bereft, in Hebrew shakhol. The English word has come to primarily refer to other types of loss over time, as being bereaved of children has become less common.
Really? My dictionary says the english word "bereave" comes from the Old English and originally meant to be deprived of something in general. I have no idea about the Hebrew word though.
However if you are right, good to know.
http://dictionary.reference.com/etymology/bereft
Just as "widow" and "orphan" have other uses, it also means to be deprived in general, but it is the word for a parent who has lost their young, although that context is no longer primary.
Ahh, ok. Whoopsie.
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I don't remember saying "there is no such", or do you mean in general?
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.
I am afraid I don't understand. :)
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 07:28:59 PM
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
In the king James Bible it was translated "Witch" as in "Thou Shalt not suffer a witch to live"
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on January 13, 2011, 07:37:44 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 07:28:59 PM
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
In the king James Bible it was translated "Witch" as in "Thou Shalt not suffer a witch to live"
Doesn't stop it from sounding like some fruity drink that has rum or some such in it. :lulz:
Quote from: Charley Brown on January 13, 2011, 07:36:02 PM
I am afraid I don't understand. :)
Only because your language does not have a word for this kind of thread.
Quote from: Cain on January 13, 2011, 07:46:41 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on January 13, 2011, 07:36:02 PM
I am afraid I don't understand. :)
Only because your language does not have a word for this kind of thread.
Mine does: Mittens.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:34:28 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:24:02 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:20:23 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
Word.
I think sometimes it's not that people can't conceptualize the idea, more than its that they don't want to give it a name because it seems to legitimize it in some manner. I have nothing to back that up, mind you, just an uneducated hunch on my part.
It reminds me of a speech from Six Feet Under, which touches on this idea and I suppose informed my "hunch" above in a sense, since it was an idea I had never really thought about:
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
The word in English is bereft, in Hebrew shakhol. The English word has come to primarily refer to other types of loss over time, as being bereaved of children has become less common.
Really? My dictionary says the english word "bereave" comes from the Old English and originally meant to be deprived of something in general. I have no idea about the Hebrew word though.
However if you are right, good to know.
http://dictionary.reference.com/etymology/bereft
Just as "widow" and "orphan" have other uses, it also means to be deprived in general, but it is the word for a parent who has lost their young, although that context is no longer primary.
Ahh, ok. Whoopsie.
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I don't remember saying "there is no such", or do you mean in general?
I mean in general... really more referring to the Six Feet Under quote, which doesn't make that statement verbatim, but which implies it with the statement "I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name".
It seems very common for people to state that something doesn't exist because they have never heard of it, without doing research to find out whether it exists. In my opinion, most people would be better off if they started with the assumption that it might exist, but that they don't know about it, especially with language. Even a very fluent, educated native English speaker has a vocabulary of only 20,000-30,000 English words, but not counting specialized scientific vocabulary, English has over 500,000 words.
Quote from: Cain on January 13, 2011, 07:46:41 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on January 13, 2011, 07:36:02 PM
I am afraid I don't understand. :)
Only because your language does not have a word for this kind of thread.
:lol:
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:50:11 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:34:28 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:24:02 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:20:23 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 07:01:23 PM
Word.
I think sometimes it's not that people can't conceptualize the idea, more than its that they don't want to give it a name because it seems to legitimize it in some manner. I have nothing to back that up, mind you, just an uneducated hunch on my part.
It reminds me of a speech from Six Feet Under, which touches on this idea and I suppose informed my "hunch" above in a sense, since it was an idea I had never really thought about:
QuoteYou know what I find interesting? If you lose a spouse, you're called a widow or a widower. If you're a child and you lose your parents, then you're an orphan. But what's the word to describe a parent who loses a child? I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name.
So, yeah, not that nobody understands that parents who lose a child exist, just something nobody really wants to think about enough to pin a word on it.
The word in English is bereft, in Hebrew shakhol. The English word has come to primarily refer to other types of loss over time, as being bereaved of children has become less common.
Really? My dictionary says the english word "bereave" comes from the Old English and originally meant to be deprived of something in general. I have no idea about the Hebrew word though.
However if you are right, good to know.
http://dictionary.reference.com/etymology/bereft
Just as "widow" and "orphan" have other uses, it also means to be deprived in general, but it is the word for a parent who has lost their young, although that context is no longer primary.
Ahh, ok. Whoopsie.
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I don't remember saying "there is no such", or do you mean in general?
I mean in general... really more referring to the Six Feet Under quote, which doesn't make that statement verbatim, but which implies it with the statement "I guess that's just too fucking awful to even have a name".
It seems very common for people to state that something doesn't exist because they have never heard of it, without doing research to find out whether it exists. In my opinion, most people would be better off if they started with the assumption that it might exist, but that they don't know about it, especially with language. Even a very fluent, educated native English speaker has a vocabulary of only 20,000-30,000 English words, but not counting specialized scientific vocabulary, English has over 500,000 words.
Excellent point.
This concept also surfaces in another way, such as when you hear people say things (typically of middle eastern countries) like "do you know they don't have a word for freedom/citizen/vote/etc?"
This has always annoyed me greatly.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 13, 2011, 07:34:42 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.
And I think it's creeping e-prime.
I can name several things that don't exist.
Quote from: East Coast Hipster on January 13, 2011, 08:51:46 PM
This concept also surfaces in another way, such as when you hear people say things (typically of middle eastern countries) like "do you know they don't have a word for freedom/citizen/vote/etc?"
This has always annoyed me greatly.
"As I understand it, the Russians don't even have a word for freedom."
- Ronald Reagan, 1983, apparently having missed the word "svoboda" ("freedom").
Quote from: East Coast Hipster on January 13, 2011, 08:51:46 PM
This concept also surfaces in another way, such as when you hear people say things (typically of middle eastern countries) like "do you know they don't have a word for freedom/citizen/vote/etc?"
This has always annoyed me greatly.
Oh my god, yeah. It's really annoying.
THEM'S MUST NOT BE REAL PEOPLE THEN.
/
:redneck2:
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 08:52:03 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 13, 2011, 07:34:42 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.
And I think it's creeping e-prime.
I can name several things that don't exist.
It's different if you know they don't exist, vs. assuming that if you haven't already encountered them then they must not exist.
I can reasonably declare things not to exist if I've researched them and found no evidence that they exist.
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 08:54:51 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 08:52:03 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 13, 2011, 07:34:42 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.
And I think it's creeping e-prime.
I can name several things that don't exist.
It's different if you know they don't exist, vs. assuming that if you haven't already encountered them then they must not exist.
I can reasonably declare things not to exist if I've researched them and found no evidence that they exist.
Like this God person, for instance... she's got a lot of 'splaining if she do exist.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 13, 2011, 08:59:19 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 08:54:51 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 08:52:03 PM
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 13, 2011, 07:34:42 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 13, 2011, 07:32:01 PM
This opens the door for another peeve of mine, though, which is when people say "There is no such" instead of "I don't know of".
I've always thought this was a good indication of an Erisian mind.
And I think it's creeping e-prime.
I can name several things that don't exist.
It's different if you know they don't exist, vs. assuming that if you haven't already encountered them then they must not exist.
I can reasonably declare things not to exist if I've researched them and found no evidence that they exist.
Like this God person, for instance... she's got a lot of 'splaining if she do exist.
I've proven God's existence.
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 13, 2011, 06:53:44 PM
In support of this, I'd like to call upon the knowledge of any German speakers on the board... From what I can tell, a lot of their more complex words are simply amalgamations of smaller words, which is why you get words like "Rolltreppenbenutzungshinweise" which means, apparently, "rolling-stairs-use-tips" or "Tips for using the escalator". Ok, that was a silly example.
Yeah, at first I thought it meant "escalator manual", but after asking my gf, it's indeed more like usage tips, in the sense that this is a word one could use for the sign next to an escalator with safety rules/tips on it, such as not bringing your child carrier on it.
You can even split the word further, "weisen" means "to point", so "weise" would mean "pointer". The "hin" bit is a sort of preposition thingy, similar to how it's used in the English phrase "to point
out". So the "tips" are literally "out pointers", pointing things out for you.
BTW there is a curious thing in the English language where "escalator manual" is also a single word. A compound word made of two (orthographic) words. Confusing two different meaning to "word", one being "sequence of letters delineated by spaces" (or more accurately
/\w+/ as we say in regex language), also known as orthographic word, the other being a sort of smallest semantic unit. Note that "English language" is not a single word, cause "English" is an adjective, so that makes it a phrase.
The difference between Dutch or German and English, is that we tend to leave out the spaces (or in Dutch sometimes replace them with dashes, if necessary), while English leaves them in.
QuoteThere's a fantasy that somewhere, there's a race of people who are closer to some sort of idealized paradise where everyone is nice to each other, in spite of biological and psychological evolutionary evidence to the contrary.
Oh yeah,
those people. Always smiling, happy, nice. I'm pretty sure we conquered, pillaged and raped them. The cunts.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 07:28:59 PM
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
Gossiper.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on January 13, 2011, 11:40:58 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 07:28:59 PM
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
Gossiper.
Yeah, but doesn't chismosa also imply troublemaking just for the sheer hell of it? You can gossip without malice.
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 14, 2011, 12:13:05 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on January 13, 2011, 11:40:58 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 07:28:59 PM
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
Gossiper.
Yeah, but doesn't chismosa also imply troublemaking just for the sheer hell of it? You can gossip without malice.
Interesting, i thought gossiping was mostly, if not always with bad intentions. Its like talking shit or bringing up secrets that dont concern oneself as to judge a person negatively.
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on January 14, 2011, 02:44:18 AM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 14, 2011, 12:13:05 AM
Quote from: Joh'Nyx on January 13, 2011, 11:40:58 PM
Quote from: The Good Reverend Roger on January 13, 2011, 07:28:59 PM
English has no direct translation for "chismosa", but we understand the concept.
Gossiper.
Yeah, but doesn't chismosa also imply troublemaking just for the sheer hell of it? You can gossip without malice.
Interesting, i thought gossiping was mostly, if not always with bad intentions. Its like talking shit or bringing up secrets that dont concern oneself as to judge a person negatively.
No, gossiping is just making chitchat, idle talk, especially about the actions or personal lives of others. It's not inherently malicious and everyone does it.
[facetious] You know, theres a phrase for the extreme take on the concept we are discussing/disarming.
It's called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.
[/facetious]
:lol: Which has truths and more untruths to it. Nigel's speaking on a level of a more or less COMMON shared human experience, whereas Sapir-Whorf sees the opposite. Basically, language can reflect the nature of a shared cultural experience, without benefit of understanding those things not "found" or "expressed" within that language. This has since been debunked to a large degree, because what has been deemed as missing was actually upon further scrutiny FOUND elsewhere or expressed elsewise.
Sapir-Whorf made hypotheses on the auspices of limited data sources and gathering techniques. I think both of their studies had merit for no other reason than to offer further exploration on the notion of the "confines" of a language or a people's lexicon.
piraha provides a really interesting look at the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. A language with no recursion or numbers in it.
The language of the Piraha is still fairly controversial, and frankly I won't be convinced that they cannot count until a native-born Piraha writes a book about the experience of being Piraha. For all we know, numbers are implicit in the language or inflection. Keep in mind that similar claims have been made about many, many indigenous people over the centuries, all disproved when the indigenous people were able to communicate fluently in another language. Another factor; indigenous people fuck with anthropologists. Fact. American indians have a longstanding tradition of telling anthropologists things that make them look ridiculous to other indians, but which white people don't have the cultural references to get. A couple of the Piraha spoke fluent Portuguese... and yet, still, Everett's claim that the Piraha are monolingual and have no numbering words?
I don't know all that much about it, but it seems likely that they either integrate counting into the language or that they have nonverbal words for numbers, making Everett perhaps not technically a liar, but certainly misleading, as he was with the statement that the Piraha are monolingual.
As I understand, Everett's claim goes beyond them not simply having words for numbers and into them being unable to learn the words for numbers as an adult.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on January 14, 2011, 06:09:51 AM
As I understand, Everett's claim goes beyond them not simply having words for numbers and into them being unable to learn the words for numbers as an adult.
That is highly unlikely, especially since he seems to have omitted any attempt to reconcile how that works for those Piraha who grew up in Brazilian villages, speaking Portuguese.
Also, his claims that they have to concept of recursion is belied by his own reports. Furthermore, the words that the language contains do not by definition contain their ability to express concepts, and as a non-native, or even fluent, speaker, his ability so speak with confidence about what they are able to convey is incredibly limited.
Personally, I suspect that Everett has an agenda.
Er, the ones that grew up in Brazilian villages wouldn't have that issue. If Everett's claims are true the problem is one of human ontogeny. Its well established in case studies of extreme child neglect that if a kid doesn't learn certain things growing up he or she can't ever learn them as an adult. Any Piraha who grew up outside the tribe should have those concepts down fine. Actually they all should within a few generations of Everett's time with them, since he would have exposed the kids to the concepts (and they in turn should pass them on to their kids).
Also iirc Everett is using this stuff as an elaborate variation on the argument from evil (God clearly doesn't exist because these people are different from other people, etc) so he *definitely* has an agenda. I'm more amused by the idea that the entire tribe decided to pull a fast one on him though.
Quote from: Requia ☣ on January 14, 2011, 06:53:03 AM
Er, the ones that grew up in Brazilian villages wouldn't have that issue. If Everett's claims are true the problem is one of human ontogeny. Its well established in case studies of extreme child neglect that if a kid doesn't learn certain things growing up he or she can't ever learn them as an adult. Any Piraha who grew up outside the tribe should have those concepts down fine. Actually they all should within a few generations of Everett's time with them, since he would have exposed the kids to the concepts (and they in turn should pass them on to their kids).
Also iirc Everett is using this stuff as an elaborate variation on the argument from evil (God clearly doesn't exist because these people are different from other people, etc) so he *definitely* has an agenda. I'm more amused by the idea that the entire tribe decided to pull a fast one on him though.
Yeah... OK, disregarding the documented limits to that hypothesis, actually, Portuguese-speaking Brazilians would have introduced them to that concept 200 years ago, and failing that (as unlikley as that is) the tribal members who grew up in Brazilian villages speaking Portuguese who later returned to live with the tribe would have introduced the village's children to the concept long before Everett arrived, yet he doesn't address or try to reconcile that
at all.
That on top of the highly unlikely claim that he found the
world's only fully functional human population that never developed the technology of numbers.
The possibility that the tribe is fucking with him is not unlikely, as substantiated by other, even larger tribes totally fucking with anthropologists, sometimes over a course of hundreds of years.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 07:09:31 AM
The possibility that the tribe is fucking with him is not unlikely, as substantiated by other, even larger tribes totally fucking with anthropologists, sometimes over a course of hundreds of years.
A couple hundred years? That's kind of awesome.
links please?
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on January 14, 2011, 07:18:14 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 07:09:31 AM
The possibility that the tribe is fucking with him is not unlikely, as substantiated by other, even larger tribes totally fucking with anthropologists, sometimes over a course of hundreds of years.
A couple hundred years? That's kind of awesome.
links please?
You'll have to Google it yourself. I'm an indian, not an anthropologist. As far as I know anthropologists are STILL telling people that we poke a hole in the bread "to let the evil spirits out". :lol: There's a bunch of shit that I've heard about that's supposedly still in books.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 07:54:41 AM
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on January 14, 2011, 07:18:14 AM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 07:09:31 AM
The possibility that the tribe is fucking with him is not unlikely, as substantiated by other, even larger tribes totally fucking with anthropologists, sometimes over a course of hundreds of years.
A couple hundred years? That's kind of awesome.
links please?
You'll have to Google it yourself. I'm an indian, not an anthropologist. As far as I know anthropologists are STILL telling people that we poke a hole in the bread "to let the evil spirits out". :lol: There's a bunch of shit that I've heard about that's supposedly still in books.
Oh. This. Do not read to learn about Native American culture. And especially don't look on the Internet. :lulz:
Anthropology is at least as funny as astrology. Maybe funnier.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 08:50:47 AM
Anthropology is at least as funny as astrology. Maybe funnier.
:lulz:
You might find this (http://www.cracked.com/article_18823_5-insane-ways-words-can-control-your-mind.html) interesting.
Also this. (http://www.apa.org/monitor/feb05/hues.aspx)
The first one was a Cracked article, but the second one was interesting, even though any conclusions about how people perceive color based on language seem spurious in comparison to the more obvious conclusions about how culture and language affect how people organize and categorize color.
Organizing and categorizing color is a kind of a big deal in my field, as a real-world problem that each of us is forced to solve, and I would love to see these same researchers study how colorists categorize, because it often makes no sense at all to non-colorists who are used to a system of categorization that is largely based on their cultural norm, perhaps the Crayola box. I have known people to rearrange their glass completely, moving hundreds of colors around, because they had an epiphany that required a complete reorganization, with many colors moving from one category into a completely different category.
Even among English speakers, disagreement about what category a color belongs to is common. Is chartreuse a yellow, or is it a green?
Is brown a kind of purple? Is pink a kind of brown? Do yellows go with pinks, or browns, or greens?
What is red?
We can all SEE the differences between the colors, but we don't all use the same names or even the same categories for them.
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
What about made up but widely used words. Are they words if used often enough?
Thing-a-ma-bob for example.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
You mean, what colors go together, aesthetically?
That's completely made up. Not only is it made up, but there is an organization which makes up new color combinations every year and then tells the fashion world what to think. So yes, in a sense it's culture-based.
Quote from: Charley Brown on January 14, 2011, 04:51:12 PM
What about made up but widely used words. Are they words if used often enough?
Thing-a-ma-bob for example.
Yes. As soon as enough people recognize the word as having a common meaning, it's a word.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:54:05 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
You mean, what colors go together, aesthetically?
That's completely made up. Not only is it made up, but there is an organization which makes up new color combinations every year and then tells the fashion world what to think. So yes, in a sense it's culture-based.
That's kind of what I figured, thanks.
Language is a plastic thing. It's ever-changing. You can't really stop the train that's barrelling down the tracks. (Which is why entities like L'Ecole Francaise always crack me up.) Usage outweighs rebuke. And the formalized structures will no doubt vary from colloquialized structures as well. This creates the sense that some forms are "wrong," or "bad" or inappropriate.
Different modes of language are used for different situations (i.e. you don't talk to your boss the way you'd talk to your brother, etc.). This is rooted so deeply from subculture to subculture in a way that folks are unaware, really, of this dialectical switch. Unless, of course, they study it. And then everything's so "meta" that it gets a little crazy.
The interesting studies to me are done on the emergence of language as well as the death of it. Languages die every day, Native American Indian languages especially. I had the privilege of cataloging some of the now-extinct language of Cado about 15 years ago.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:55:50 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:54:05 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
You mean, what colors go together, aesthetically?
That's completely made up. Not only is it made up, but there is an organization which makes up new color combinations every year and then tells the fashion world what to think. So yes, in a sense it's culture-based.
That's kind of what I figured, thanks.
It actually kind of weirded me out when I learned about it... I'd always sort of imagined that color trends happened organically, like designers in Paris, Milan, and New York looked around and took note of what the fashionable ladies were wearing, then designed their lines to follow suit.
Nope. Once a year the "color report" is issued forth, and it isn't a report, it's an instructional manual.
Here's the 2011 report: http://www.pantone.com/pages/Pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20747&ca=4
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:54:41 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on January 14, 2011, 04:51:12 PM
What about made up but widely used words. Are they words if used often enough?
Thing-a-ma-bob for example.
Yes. As soon as enough people recognize the word as having a common meaning, it's a word.
This. And depending on who uses it, it may stay within a certain subset of speakers or carry itself quickly throughout the larger lexicon.
A lot of phrases from the "rap" or "youth culture" as it was called back in the 90's when I was studying this at UCLA have now become everyday household expressions through media proliferation.
Quote from: Jenne on January 14, 2011, 05:04:08 PM
A lot of phrases from the "rap" or "youth culture" as it was called back in the 90's when I was studying this at UCLA have now become everyday household expressions through media proliferation.
Word.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 05:03:34 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:55:50 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:54:05 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
You mean, what colors go together, aesthetically?
That's completely made up. Not only is it made up, but there is an organization which makes up new color combinations every year and then tells the fashion world what to think. So yes, in a sense it's culture-based.
That's kind of what I figured, thanks.
It actually kind of weirded me out when I learned about it... I'd always sort of imagined that color trends happened organically, like designers in Paris, Milan, and New York looked around and took note of what the fashionable ladies were wearing, then designed their lines to follow suit.
Nope. Once a year the "color report" is issued forth, and it isn't a report, it's an instructional manual.
Here's the 2011 report: http://www.pantone.com/pages/Pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20747&ca=4
They alluded to this in the book AND movie
The Devil Wears Prada.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 05:03:34 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:55:50 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:54:05 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
You mean, what colors go together, aesthetically?
That's completely made up. Not only is it made up, but there is an organization which makes up new color combinations every year and then tells the fashion world what to think. So yes, in a sense it's culture-based.
That's kind of what I figured, thanks.
It actually kind of weirded me out when I learned about it... I'd always sort of imagined that color trends happened organically, like designers in Paris, Milan, and New York looked around and took note of what the fashionable ladies were wearing, then designed their lines to follow suit.
Nope. Once a year the "color report" is issued forth, and it isn't a report, it's an instructional manual.
Here's the 2011 report: http://www.pantone.com/pages/Pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20747&ca=4
WOW. :x
Quote from: LMNO, PhD on January 14, 2011, 05:04:45 PM
Quote from: Jenne on January 14, 2011, 05:04:08 PM
A lot of phrases from the "rap" or "youth culture" as it was called back in the 90's when I was studying this at UCLA have now become everyday household expressions through media proliferation.
Word.
Yo, holla!
Quote from: Epimetheus on January 14, 2011, 05:04:54 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 05:03:34 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:55:50 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:54:05 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
You mean, what colors go together, aesthetically?
That's completely made up. Not only is it made up, but there is an organization which makes up new color combinations every year and then tells the fashion world what to think. So yes, in a sense it's culture-based.
That's kind of what I figured, thanks.
It actually kind of weirded me out when I learned about it... I'd always sort of imagined that color trends happened organically, like designers in Paris, Milan, and New York looked around and took note of what the fashionable ladies were wearing, then designed their lines to follow suit.
Nope. Once a year the "color report" is issued forth, and it isn't a report, it's an instructional manual.
Here's the 2011 report: http://www.pantone.com/pages/Pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20747&ca=4
WOW. :x
Yeah, I'm already sick to death of honeysuckle.
Also, seriously, "regatta"? Fuck you, Pantone!
PINK! I mean HONEYSUCKLE! I love that color. :D
...but yeah, it gets old to see the same colors over and over again out in the world.
By the end of summer I will have sold approximately 4000 honeysuckle & regatta beads, and I will never want to use those colors ever again.
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
Its aesthetically pleasing? Certain combinations rather than other, its a matter of dissonance or not.
And since im not yanking the dogs chain (i just caught up with reading) it is also very culture related.
But theres certain combinations that theres a high consensus of "pleasantness", just look at flags.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 05:03:34 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:55:50 PM
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:54:05 PM
Quote from: Hoopla on January 14, 2011, 04:48:52 PM
Cracked is much more thought-provoking than it once was, just saying.
Here's a question that has bothered me for some time, only tangentially related to this topic, so feel free to ignore... but who decided which colors match with other colors? Are these matches universal, or culture based?
You mean, what colors go together, aesthetically?
That's completely made up. Not only is it made up, but there is an organization which makes up new color combinations every year and then tells the fashion world what to think. So yes, in a sense it's culture-based.
That's kind of what I figured, thanks.
It actually kind of weirded me out when I learned about it... I'd always sort of imagined that color trends happened organically, like designers in Paris, Milan, and New York looked around and took note of what the fashionable ladies were wearing, then designed their lines to follow suit.
Nope. Once a year the "color report" is issued forth, and it isn't a report, it's an instructional manual.
Here's the 2011 report: http://www.pantone.com/pages/Pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20747&ca=4
I knew that this is the case, but just for colour trends, as your link shows.
But afaik, which colours actually match, clash, contrast or otherwise combine in certain ways and evoke certain (sort-of) feelings
also depends on colour theory, complementary colours, the colour wheel, angles on it, etc. Kind of like chords and intervals in music. It might not be a coincidence that the visible colour spectrum spans nearly an octave in frequencies, which is why it makes sense to picture the colours in a circle, connecting red and violet/purple (which are actually on oppose sides of the spectrum), angles of 180 are considered "complementary" and angles of 120 "harmonious", is based on interactions of physical frequencies of light, and the frequency responses of different types of cones on our retina.
Additionally, there are certain colour combinations that evoke biological responses in humans, which are stronger than the yearly/seasonally fashion trends.
For example red/white/black, or yellow/black are both "warning" colours.
Also I don't think the ubiquity and pleasantness of the combination red-orange and turquoise-blue (movie-posters were pointing out to me a while ago) is a cultural thing, but also appeals because of it being the 180 degrees complimentary pair that sits at 120 degree in the colour wheel without wrapping over the octave-boundary, and our biological/psychological associations of warm-cold.
Quote from: Nigel on January 14, 2011, 04:44:32 PM
The first one was a Cracked article, but the second one was interesting, even though any conclusions about how people perceive color based on language seem spurious in comparison to the more obvious conclusions about how culture and language affect how people organize and categorize color.
Organizing and categorizing color is a kind of a big deal in my field, as a real-world problem that each of us is forced to solve, and I would love to see these same researchers study how colorists categorize, because it often makes no sense at all to non-colorists who are used to a system of categorization that is largely based on their cultural norm, perhaps the Crayola box. I have known people to rearrange their glass completely, moving hundreds of colors around, because they had an epiphany that required a complete reorganization, with many colors moving from one category into a completely different category.
Even among English speakers, disagreement about what category a color belongs to is common. Is chartreuse a yellow, or is it a green?
Is brown a kind of purple? Is pink a kind of brown? Do yellows go with pinks, or browns, or greens?
What is red?
We can all SEE the differences between the colors, but we don't all use the same names or even the same categories for them.
Yeah, you basically need to pick a model before you can meaningfully categorize color.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_space
And not all of the "combinations" are arbitrary, but they are "fuzzy". If you paint a predominantly orange painting, you can draw attention to specific parts of the picture by putting some blue next to it. This is because our eye actually gets drawn to areas of high-contrast first. For the purely visual artist (i.e., you don't need to know the RGB code for HTML design or anything), I recommend HSV, which is an RGB color model, but describes things in terms of Hue, Saturation, and Value (Brightness), which is very very close to what our eye does when it processes visual images before sending them to the brain. That said, you will get different "complementary" colors if you work in different color-spaces.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSV_color_space
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary_color
QuoteIn color theory, two colors are called complementary if, when mixed in the proper proportion, they produce a neutral color (grey, white, or black). In roughly-perceptual color models, the neutral colors (white, greys, and black) lie along a central axis. For example, in the HSV color space, complementary colors (as defined in HSV) lie opposite each other on any horizontal cross-section.
Quote from: Charley Brown on January 14, 2011, 04:51:12 PM
What about made up but widely used words. Are they words if used often enough?
Thing-a-ma-bob for example.
By the American definition yes they are. Words are "official" if they are widely used by English Speaking Americans.
By British and Commonwealth definition only if they are included by Oxford College, so British English has an Ecole.
Quote from: BabylonHoruv on January 15, 2011, 12:28:41 PM
Quote from: Charley Brown on January 14, 2011, 04:51:12 PM
What about made up but widely used words. Are they words if used often enough?
Thing-a-ma-bob for example.
By the American definition yes they are. Words are "official" if they are widely used by English Speaking Americans.
By British and Commonwealth definition only if they are included by Oxford College, so British English has an Ecole.
You may be fight about American English but your ideas on British English are a bit shite, really.
"Oxford College"
QuoteOxford College is one of the leading distance education providers in the United Kingdom and internationally, and along with our partners in education, promotes quality home study education world wide.
[snip]
Your qualification from Oxford College will show your respected and exceptional level of education.
If that is a good example of their grasp of syntax and punctuation they are hardly fit to be held up as examplars of English usage. :wink:
@ CB Thingumbob / thingumabob, was not a very good example because when I looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary the first recorded usage they give is Smollett 1751, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle "in a laced doublet and thingumbobs at the wrist" but Smollett was Scots so maybe its not a real English word anyway.
I use the 3 volume microtype version that you have to read with a magnifying glass [supplied in the box case] The OED (which has many different versions) modestly describes itself as
Quotethe definitive record of the English language.
my emphasis
This doesn't actually mean that a word has to be in the OED to be an "official" English word. Nor does it have to be pronounced in 'Oxford English' aka Received Pronunciation, BBC English, or 'talking posh', to be a valid form of communication. And what does the Commonwealth have to do with it . . . ?