Re: Editor wants to help !

Brian M. Scott wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 13:47:11 -0000, Gerry Quinn
<gerryq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:MPG.205cc73a845a349898b53a@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

In article <1g142lufmtfsx.zye1vh64ns31$.dlg@xxxxxxxxxx>, b.scott@xxxxxxxxxxx says...

On Fri, 9 Mar 2007 02:18:53 -0000, Gerry Quinn
<gerryq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:MPG.205ad4643e6a629198b529@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.composition:

I take the view that the meaning of a word can be pretty
much separate from any abusive overtones.

Only for a castrated definition of 'meaning'. Widely
recognized overtones, abusive or otherwise, are an intrinsic
part of the meaning of a word.

It seems to me that it is you who are trying to castrate the meaning.

How so? You're the one who wants to ignore part of what is
communicated by the word.

Suppose I always use the word "***" to refer to black
people, perhaps because I live and write in the
seventeenth century, or perhaps because I hold them in
contempt. I tell you that "X is a ***". What
meaning can you extract from that, other than that X is
black?

Since you're alive today, I could infer with high
probability that you're prejudiced. The probability isn't
1.0, but neither is the probability that the person referred
to is black.

I could be black. Then, presumably, I would approve of X's blackness insofar as I had an opinion about it.

If you wish to split hairs, I'll point out that positive
prejudice is still prejudice. More to the point, the
probability is low that someone named <Gerry Quinn>, who has
an Irish e-mail address, is black.

If I describe some blacks as "niggers" and others as
"blacks" then there may be some information content in
my choice of word. If I always use one word, there is
none.

There certainly is in *this* world.

Or at most there are two separate statements, i.e. "X is
black" and "I like to use an offensive term to refer to
blacks". But the latter, if consistent, says nothing
about the subject of the sentence.

So? It's an inseparable part of the communication.

It's not a very useful part if it just says the speaker might approve, disapprove, or have no opinion of blacks, and depending upon what you know of him you may be able to modulate your estimate of the odds.

Since real contexts almost always provide far more
information than you suggest, it says far more than that.

I'm not saying words don't convey such subtexts, but there is a useful meaning of the word 'meaning' that excludes them.

In practical terms such a narrow interpretation of 'meaning'
is far less useful than a more comprehensive one. It would
make better sense to find a suitable more restrictive term
than to attempt artificially to narrow the definition of
'meaning'.

How about 'denotation'? Isn't that what the word was invented for?

Tim
.

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