“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.“–Inigo Montoya
With appreciation for the language adopted by the King James translators of the New Testament, I offer this use of the structure of I Corinthians 13:13,
“Now there abide these three: phonemes, syntax and semantics; and the greatest of these is semantics.”
For the perhaps ONE reader who might not “get” that (I assume there could be at least one who has not yet overcome the handicap of an American pubschool upbringing), here is the annotated version:
“Now there abide these three: phonemes1, syntax2 and semantics3; and the greatest of these is semantics.”
- 1Sounds and written sound analogs
- 2Structure; you can usefully think of this as grammar, although it encompasses more than most folks think of as grammar
- 3MEANING, without which phonemes and syntax together become simply grunts and squeals and hisses and clicks.
Have charity on my dim mind; but where is this supposed to end up?
Well, for one thing with me NOT being very charitable with folks who use the expression “it’s just semantics”. *heh*
Ahhh Happy Sunday my friend!:)
“[H]appy”? It’s “just semantics”. *LOL*
They have a radio program on Saturday’s PBS station where “egg heads” play word games; never was that quick to figure them out. I’ll sit back and watch on this one.
You know, TF, I was struck by this lil byplay as I was reviewing my Wonder Woman’s paper for her “Philosophies of Education” course in which she discusses a reading education program. She and I began a side conversation on different attitudes toward reading, learning in general and intellectual pursuits of any kind. Back around the turn of the 20th Century, an adult education movement in the U.S. (largely an extension, IMO, of such programs in Britain among working class folks–most particularly among the unionizing movement of Welsh coal miners), epitomized by Chautauquas, encouraged pursuit of higher intellectual and cultural activities among the middle and working “classes”. Today? I fear the “mass man” of Ortega y Gasset’s dystopian (my admittedly idiosyncratic characterization of his observations) view of 29th Century society (The Revolt of the Masses) has actually come to rule the day.
What this has to do with a literary (not theological) reference to 1Cor 13:13 and folks disdain for meaning (semantics) in conversation is not, I admit, immediately clear, but there is a connection. Really. 🙂
It all fits. Pournelle’s observations, your corollary to Santayana’s Axiom and the modern man’s disdain for the meaning of plain words.
I sometimes think that we’ve become obsessed with syntax, especially in the courts and neglected meaning. That’s how we end up with a “living” constitution, or no constitution at all.
Indeed, Perri. Phonemes and syntax; sound and structure; sizzle and presentation: all these seem to count more today than CONTENT, MEANING… SEMANTICS.
After all, it’s just semantics. *sigh*
We’re back to being shamans, divining meaning from today’s “everything’s relative” crowd out of their meaningless grunts and whistles and moans and clicks.
And that’s just the “news” and commentary. The arts are worse. Take Avatar. From what I can gather so far, even from the grunts and whistles and moans and clicks of those who praise the thing, it’s a jejune plot filled with cardboard characters uttering grunts and whistles and moans and clicks as dialog. We’re apparently supposed to divine meaning from the gee-whiz computer animation.
Did the really big leap backwards begin with “see-say”–later so-called “whole word”–method of teaching reading as hieroglyphics? Hmmm, no, most likely well before that. Probably even with Dewey and his ilk.
But Ortega y Gasset really pegged modern, 21st Century society in 1920.