Re: Perfect Synonyms

tony cooper wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:31:46 +0800, angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:


tony cooper wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:07:28 +0800, angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com wrote:



I can't follow this. As I understand it, I'm being saddled with the position that there such things as synonyms, a position that I've never assumed in this thread. I'm saying the complete opposite; namely that house and home do not suggest ("connote") the same things, otherwise Hal David was not a good lyric writer (& some may say so).



The problem is that you are trying to make it a rule that "house" and
"home" do not connote the same thing. You can't isolate words with
similar meaning (note how I avoided "synonym") from context and make
up rules about them.

"I'm going home for lunch" and "I'm going to my house for lunch" have
exactly the same meaning. You could even say "I'm going to the house
for lunch" in some situations with the same meaning as the other two
sentences. There is no connotational change in those sentences.
There's some inference of different reasons for the entire sentence,
but not of connotation between "house" and "home".

I thought I would give up on this thread, but you're very seductive. Consider the following dialogue:

"My wife has left me. We were married twenty years and she left just like that. I tell you, Fred, I'm devastated."

"I feel for you, Tom. My wife and I can invite you to dinner tonight, if you're up to it. Do you some good to be with people."

"Nah. I'll eat at the house. Thanks anyway."

Now compare with this dialogue:

"Brenda and I just got married. I feel like I'm walking on air, Fred."

"But what about our pizza night at Tony's with the guys. You're not cutting out on us just because you're married."

"Nah. I'm going home to eat. Have fun!"



If you have to concoct an entire scenario to find a way that there is
can be a connotational difference between words, you really don't show
a grasp of this usage thing.

I can do what you did using a single word and a much shorter scenario:

-----
"I had trouble understanding that guy, Fredrico. He tries to speak
our language, but he has a terrible accent".

"I know, Tomas, but he's an American".

Now compare with this dialog:

"I had trouble understanding that guy, Fredrico. He tries to speak
our language, but he has a terrible accent".

"I know, Tomas, but what do you expect? He's an American."
-----

A simple change in context changes the word "American" from a neutral
connotation to a negative connotation.

That's what you are doing in your examples: changing context to
introduce connotation. It's not the word, but the context, that gives
the connotation.

Do it with "house" and "home":
-------------
"I invited my new colleague, Akbar, home for dinner on Friday, Fred.
You want to join us?"

"No way, Tom. I don't want to be in the same house with some Muslim
raghead."
---------------

Switch the uses of "house" and "home" and the connotation is still
entirely dependent on context:
-----------------------
"I invited my new colleague, Akbar, to my house for dinner on Friday,
Fred. You want to join us?"

No way, Tom. I'm surprised you'd invite a Muslim raghead into your
home". ----------------------

Out of respect for your post, and since you went to the trouble of posting it, I will respond. But read carefully, because I am truly losing patience in what seems to be circling the square.

In your example of "American" you're simply doing, more laboriously I might add, what I did in a previous post with the word "love": "I LOVE you" can mean many different things depending on the context.

I am NOT arguing how conotations work; I'm merely saying they DO work. So why are we going around in circles? The fact is words connote different things in different context and in different ways. That's all I'm saying.

"It's not the word but the context that changes connotation." So what are you saying? Of course that's the case; that's what I'm saying. That's why house and home can mean the same thing in a book of synonyms. Can't you accept this fact? That's why I call them part of a lexical family and therefore subsitutive. Why go around in circles? I keep getting feedback that picks up on trivial matters about whether *** means this or if it's prurient in a family's household or not: who cares?

I'm simply saying that butt and bum and ass and buttocks and derriere and behind and God knows what else each have connotative ripples that cannot be controlled. If you're lucky the other person will not be affected by those ripples (you may both be ESL students; one may be an ESL student; you may both live outside the culture, you may both not be fully aware of other meanings to the word, etc. etc.). It's like reading poetry.

It's OBVIOUS that not everyone will pick up on every word in a poem by John Keats or a sonnet by Shakespeare. On the other hand, there are people who will respond in an idioletic (even idiopathic) way based on a pathological pschology in a manner the artist cannot control, precisely because it is idiopathic.

Some person with coprophiliac tendencies may get sick listening to the Disney song, "Colors of the Wind" because when they hear "wind" they think of passing wind. But there would be no cultural uniformity on that kind of response, the way Marnie in Hitchock's film responds to the color red.

No artist or artistic community of painters and connoiseurs is thinking of Marnie when they place the color red on a canvas, with its own historical connotations (based on the shade of red, how red has been used in the past, how red has been used in relation to the figure of Jesus, how red is currently (contemporaneously) being used by other artists now being circulated in that community, etc.

I have never said, nor suggested, that I could predict with absolute certainty, or constrain with mathematical precision, or otherwise isolate the precise connotative effect of a word in a sentence, although we often come close. Obviously in Noo Joisey "coke" means Coca-Cola but in Florida or Texas it does not. Why put the burden on me to imagine every context in which *** or bum might be prurient or not? How the hell do I know? I'm merely suggesting that, in SOME cases, boobs is not the best way to speak about breasts, assuming one cares about one's receiver:

--Honey, I have nice boobs, no?
--Yes, wonderful. I've told you a hundred times already."
--I go to Doctor, tomorrow, no? I ask him to check my boobs, no?
--No. I mean yes. I mean don't use the word boobs.
--Why no use boobs? These are boobs, no?
--Yes.
--You understand when I use boobs, no?
--Yes. But your doctor will not.
--Why no doctor understand boobs? He not educated like you?
--Well, honey, boobs doesn't mean the same thing to a doctor. You should use the word breasts, at least if you want him to call for an X-ray machine instead of call for the police.
--But my dictionary here, how you say, treasorus, puts boobs next to breasts. They mean the same thing, no? And very intelligent person tell me that boobs and breasts are, how you say, sinamans.
--Well they may be synonyms in a book, but they're not synonyms in a hosptial.

Now regarding your two examples:

Do it with "house" and "home":
> -------------
> "I invited my new colleague, Akbar, home for dinner on Friday, Fred.
> You want to join us?"
>
> "No way, Tom. I don't want to be in the same house with some Muslim
> raghead."
> ---------------
>
> Switch the uses of "house" and "home" and the connotation is still
> entirely dependent on context:
> -----------------------
> "I invited my new colleague, Akbar, to my house for dinner on Friday,
> Fred. You want to join us?"
>
> No way, Tom. I'm surprised you'd invite a Muslim raghead into your
> home".
> ----------------------

First I would question the idiomatic usage in one example. I doubt if a person would say "home for dinner" of a stranger (unless that person lived there). The more standard form would be, "I invited my new colleague, Akbar, to my home for dinner." And even so I suspect "to my house" would be better still. (The very fact that a reader can question choice of synonyms, regardless whether he's wrong or right, proves the choice of so-called synonyms does matter.)

As for Fred's answer, it's perfectly acceptable and works ONLY BECAUSE house and home are not synonyms in the stylistic sense; that is, by contrasting house with home Fred is stressing his dislike of Akbar, literally kicking him out of Tom's "home" and into a "house" as a sign of his dislike.

In the second example, Fred's use of "home" functions in the same dismissive way: that is, Akbar does not deserve to be in a "home."

So what exactly are you saying? Your examples prove the point that each word is chosen for a particular effect. Whether one can replace a word hypothetically is another issue. Of course one can. I can say, "He's back in the States" or "He's back in America." The sentence in itself may not reveal important stylistic issues. But consider: "Freedom is a precious gift: fortunately, he's back in America" would be better than, "Freedom is an important gift: fortunately, he's back in the States." Don't ask me to be scientific about the connotative difference (it involves ideology, among other issues); but most readers, I suspect, would detect a difference.

As for the issue of context, OF COURSE CONTEXT MATTERS. Otherwise there ARE synonyms. I've NEVER DENIED that; and I even got in trouble with my use of "lexcial" synonymy because of this. All I'm saying is the greater the discourse, the more complex the argument, the more effective the rhetoric, the more urgent the persuasion the less likely the case will be that one word can synonymically replace another. All one has to do is read poetry or even hear a pop song to recognize this.
.

Loading