That's a good test if your goal is conformism. — Terrapin Station
That's a good test if your goal is conformism. — Terrapin Station
I get the feeling you're fetishizing non-conformism to the extent its impairing your ability to accept facts so basic coherent comprehension is dependent on them. It's OK to conform sometimes, you know. It helps keep things sensible. You don't get brownie points just for holding a minority opinion. — Baden
So, in other words, if you use "chair" to refer to bicycles, you're not incorrect. — Terrapin Station
Yes you are, because "chair" has a completely different meaning to bicycles. The common meaning is considered the standard for determining correctness by default. That's always the implicit context. You seem to think that you yourself are in charge of the implicit context, and of the default standard for determining correctness. You seem to think that you can change the default setting to your own idiosyncratic meaning on whim, without saying a word. But you're wrong. That's clearly not how things are, and not how they work, and the rest of us are keenly aware of this - it's pretty obvious when put to the test by trying to communicate in your way - which is why no one is agreeing with you. Baden has already effectively reduced your position to absurdity. You're just biting the bullet at this point. Consistency despite absurdity. Nothing to write home about. — S
Then for once you're right. — Terrapin Station
Funny that by your own logic I wouldn't be incorrect in interpreting you as saying that I'm always right. — Baden
So, in other words, if you use "chair" to refer to bicycles, you're not incorrect, but if you say, "Most people use 'chair' to refer to bicycles," you are incorrect . — Terrapin Station
if you say, "Most people use 'chair' to refer to bicycles," you are incorrect . — Terrapin Station
You wouldn't be gaining anything by deviating from the norm here. — S
But again, by his own logic, you are not incorrect in using 'use' to mean 'don't use' (and it would be fallacious to claim otherwise) and he cannot know that that is not the usage you are employing, so his own statement above is incorrect. So what it means in practice to have no notion of correct usage is that you cannot make any claim about what anyone says without clarifying their meaning, and then clarifying the clarification, and so on ad infinitum. The upshot of no usage being correct is the impossibility of communication. — Baden
What it means is that the manner in which you use the word "chair" does not correspond to the manner in which English speaking people do. — Magnus Anderson
It should be pretty obvious that I don't think it makes communication impossible, right? — Terrapin Station
I wouldn't be incorrect in interpreting this to mean that you think it makes communication impossible? — Baden
There aren't correct/incorrect interpretations. — Terrapin Station
By that I'm not incorrect in assuming you mean I am obviously right and you are obviously wrong? — Baden
It should be pretty obvious that I don't think it makes communication impossible, right? — Terrapin Station
Instead of worrying about whether an interpretation is correct or not, why not worry about things like whether communication with someone is coherent, consistent, etc.? — Terrapin Station
You seem unusually consumed with being right, correct, etc.
I could suggest a therapist. — Terrapin Station
Then you must use some other word than "correct" which has no practical difference in meaning. — S
Yes, but in order to be coherent there are certain presumptions to be made including that there is a standard of correctness that we can both agree on with regards to the meaning of words. — Baden
Communication simply depends on being able to understand others, which is a matter of being able to assign meanings to their utterances (say) in a manner that's coherent, consistent with their other past and future utterances, etc.
There's no need to bring the idea of "correct" into it.
Re the notion of definitions being correct or not, they're conventional or not. It's not incorrect to be conventional. The conventional definition of "correct" isn't "conventional." — Terrapin Station
I find it really silly that you don't want to use the word "correct" like the rest of us, — S
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