Posts by BenWilson
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Mark, you can fuck right off too. I'm tempted to post that about another 10 times to catch up with you, but once is actually enough. You ran out of material pages ago, lost the plot and now you're just being a wanker.
-
That wasn't an ad hominem.
Yes, it was. Gio was taking my statements about the value of a hypothetical future universal language out of context and using them to say assert that I'm a stupid arse who doesn't try to learn foreign languages when abroad, and that I believe everyone on the planet should change their ways to suit me. All of that is an ad hominem directly aimed at pissing me off, and encouraging others to do so, as an indirect way to discredit the idea itself (which is what he actually doesn't like). He does it all the time, and not just to me.
"I don't like your style" is not an ad hominem, it's a simple confession about myself. If it is insulting then it's been a fucking long time coming.
-
Gio, I won't break out the ad hominems, because I don't like your style either. Instead, I'm going summarize, one last time, my position on everything in this thread. If you are then incapable of understanding my position, after 19 pages, numerous clarifications, and language that is considered bleeding obvious, then I'll conclude that you never wanted to understand in the first place.
1. Universal language would be a good thing to have. I don't have a program by which to bring it about, nor do I even have any confidence that it will come about by itself. I just think it would, in balance, be good. I really wouldn't care less what language it was. I don't think it needs to kill other languages, but I would not be heartbroken if it did.
2. Complex grammatical structures are not required for disambiguation, and they do hinder the learning of the language.
3. Authors intentions matter in the interpretation of texts. They are not the last or only word, nor are they irrelevant. Tolerance of mistakes in language is a sign that you want to understand your fellow man, rather than control him.
I don't think anything I've said here is obviously wrong. It's just disputable, debatable, and debating it is what I've been doing, with everyone, no matter how inclined to rudeness they are. I don't believe that I need any special qualifications to hold these views, nor does anyone else need any to argue with them. Anyone who was tired of reading what I had to say had the option to stop at any time, so everyone who persisted is guilty of every bit of pigheadness that they might like to attribute to me. -
linger, I think we're approaching agreement. I would personally add "the audience's experiences of the language producer after the utterance". I think this might be where we depart, and I'm happy to agree to disagree.
Sacha, I suspect you are wise not to waste your time so, because you have already made up your mind, about both the subject matter, and what I think about it. Have a nice life.
Joe, I'm glad you find what I'm saying bleeding obvious, rather than confusing or wrong.
-
linger
Oh, for sure, though it would probably take rather a perverse audience to observe someone hopping up and down in agitated discomfort and conclude that they're desperate to enter a pogo competition, eh.
I think it's pretty perverse that it even has to come to that. Human dignity might be better preserved if finding a toilet were something that could be done without amusing (to everyone else) antics.
Toilets is actually a poor example on my part, though. There already is a fairly universal language for that, precisely because it is so important. That language takes a leaf out of the Chinese book and encodes the symbol as a stylized picture, making the ability to say the word or read the language unnecessary. Better examples are things that can't easily be conveyed with pictures. Like "take a ticket here, so that you can enter the queue to be served". That's the kind of thing that really fucks foreigners up and makes their life a misery when abroad.
-
I like that
Yay, a fan!
I give up
Heh, that clip is just as funny now as it was the first time. I'm sorry you're giving up, though. I thought your analogy was interesting and could have gone somewhere. You could have totally pushed it towards saying that there are absolute tastes, by speaking of competent audiences etc. It's not an untenable position, it's just probably something you didn't, on reflection, want to do. Not in this forum anyway. If it were a no-brainer that tastes are absolute, then it could very well have brought a strong case to bear on the attachment of absolute meanings to language use. I'm actually not that committed on the point myself. I'm really only committed to saying that the point is not settled, and consideration of the intention of the cook or author isn't something that can dogmatically be thrown out on the assumption that a highly contentious philosophical theory about meaning has been solved.
-
On the odd occasion that a cook will present a cake that is burnt to a crisp, and claim that it tastes nice (after being actually observed to taste it), I think you will get a genuine insight into the very peculiar working of their brain. Either they are a liar, or someone with highly unusual tastes, or they're making fun of you (and other possibilities).
Having said that, I've eaten some cakes that have been burnt to a crisp. I don't like the burnt bits, but very often there's something nice about them. So far, I've never actually been presented with anything masquerading as food that was actually charcoal right through. I guess it could happen if the cook was crazy. Even so, it's pretty hard to say they are wrong about it tasting nice, if they persist, and eat the whole thing smacking their lips and saying 'mmmmm, yummy! All you can conclude is they have odd tastes.
-
3410, I'm surprised that you use that example, in light of the veritable beating I received from all and sundry on this here website, for appearing to suggest that tastes are absolute. That was because the taste that I happened to find disgusting, alcohol, was so liked by the readers that they couldn't even countenance the idea that the liking of it might not be innate. I fully concede (and indeed never disputed) the point that different people have different tastes.
So when you say that a cake tastes terrible, all you've managed to show is that you find it terrible. If the cook actually thought it was nice, and it is usually the case that they were trying to make it taste nice, then I don't think the matter is solved at all by you disliking it. Or any 'appropriate audience' either. At the end of the day, there may be no truth to the matter at all. I think it does actually matter what the cook intended, because when you do actually ask them about it, you might find "you idiot, you're meant to have it with alcohol, not after your ice cream". You might discover the subtle flavors that you didn't notice on the first bite. Or you might discover that it was not meant to be a sweet cake at all. The intention of the cook is actually quite important.
-
linger, I'm certain we're arguing from different contexts. But I don't treat that as certain doom for my chances of understanding your point. It will just take longer. More words will be required. And that is my very point here, that if context makes a direct and elegant translation difficult, then more words can be used to describe the context. Some of the time, it's a lot more words. A lot of the time, it isn't. It's pretty easy to convey very complex ideas directly into a foreign language, if the original in your own language was already put clearly and unambiguously. It's when you insist on cramming every last ounce of meaning you can into as few words as possible in the original, that problems arise. And these problems are not just for speakers of other languages, they are also for native speakers of your own language.
To that extent, it's an obvious fact that no language, universal or otherwise, is going to be able to beautifully and elegantly translate every bit of prose and poetry in every other language. You only have to read things in translation, with their inevitably enormously long footnotes contextualizing things and explaining what the words meant at the time, to see this. To be honest the same thing happens with prose in my own language. I can't recall ever being able to wade my way through a Shakespeare play without at some point having to go to the references to find out what the hell the guy is on about. And even then, I'm not so sure.
None of these points undermines the value that would be had for people to be able to understand utterances in a common tongue which don't fit into the class of highly compact, difficult, deep language. For a lot of us, that's 99% of our utterances. We really do just want to find the toilet. We really do just want to know how much this trip will cost, and whether it will actually stop where we want to go. We really do just want to know if we're allowed to get a benefit or a some other entitlement.
-
Damn, linger, I thought you knew something I didn't which sounded very interesting indeed. But alas, it was rhetoric! Never mind.
I don't really see too much distinction between signals that are verbal and those that are not. The non-verbal ones are fewer and therefore less expressive, but they are also most likely the ones about the things that are the most important to us. But they could safely be treated as 'more words' in a translation. They're not a special class of signals grammatically, they just have a different delivery method.
That's why I don't see the existence of other signals as a problem for universal language. They're not a problem in a good translation currently, so really all you can say for sure is that a good elegant translation into universal language might sometimes be difficult. Yup, it will be. It is also difficult between other languages, and that is no reason not to use those translations.
The conclusions that can be drawn from the context of a communication are not in themselves that relevant to the 'meaning' of the communication, unless they are intended to be. You could conclude if I ask for another helping after a big meal that I am a greedy pig, but I did not actually say that, nor did I probably mean that. Knowing that some people will think that is useful cultural information, but I don't think it actually projects meaning backwards into the utterance, unless that was intended, and can be seen to have been intended.
Last ←Newer Page 1 … 892 893 894 895 896 … 1066 Older→ First