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Steven_Bukal comments on Cargo Cult Language - Less Wrong
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Comments (43)
This really just seems to be linguistic pedantry/elitism disguised as trying to make a good point. Almost none of these situations ever lead to misunderstandings, and it seems like you're just annoyed that people use words differently than the dictionary definition tells them to.
This is my thought as well. Every one of the examples given I would attribute to dialectal differences between common usage and the more technical and jargon-filled language used by scientists and science fans. SaidAchmiz even admits that for some of these, the usage he doesn't like is more common, which is a big hint. My understanding is that speakers very rarely adopt usage which will be misunderstood by the language group they typically speak with.
Isn't this exactly why we have the technique of Rationalist Taboo? It doesn't matter whether the meaning someone ascribes to a word seems stupid to you, once you understand what they mean by the word, and they understand what you mean by the word, you can move on. The best ways I've found to do this are to coin two new words (I like to prepend the word in question with the name of the person whose meaning we are trying to capture), or to always replace the word with its intended substance for the rest of the discourse.
Do you really think this is the case? How does this apply to "the exception that proves the rule", for instance?
Consider this hypothetical exchange:
Bob: All bears are either black or white.
Fred: Eh? But I saw a brown bear just yesterday.
Bob: Well, that's the exception that proves the rule.
Let's suppose that this usage is in fact more common than the two that I cited as "correct". It seems to be either false or meaningless. What is Bob saying here? How does Rationalist Taboo help us?
You said in the OP that the more common usage takes the phrase to refer to any exception. So from that, Bob probably means that the brown bear you saw is an exception.
Seeing as how Bob probably means that the brown bear is an exception, his argument is poor. So I would then say something like, "since you agree that there is an exception, you should agree that not all bears are black or white". If he disagrees, then he isn't using the common meaning after all and I would ask him to taboo the phrase "exception that proves the rule" to find out what he does mean.
Yes, it does.
I think that was an unfair clipping. The context of that quote was the OP's statement about the usefulness of getting clarification of language usage.
My point is that having to play rationalist taboo is still much worse then not having to play it.
Well said. This is basically my own thought as well.