RE: spoon-discuss: Re: spoon-business: CFJ: Opening the floodgates

["Gavin Doig" <gmd@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > Well... so what? Those are different words (which happen to 
> > be spelt the same), 
>
> Yes, and the important thing is that the only way you know
> which of the words I mean is because I made sure to make it
> clear which definition I was referring to.  In contrast, the rules
> do not make it clear which definition of "proposal" is equivalent
> to "proosal", nor what any of the definitions of "proosal" are, or
> how many there may be.  For all we know, "proosal" could be
> equivalent to every other word in the English language as well.
>
But the rule doesn't say that one meaning of "proposal" is equivalent to "proosal", or that "proposal means proosal". They say that the 2 terms are equivalent - wherever you see "proosal", treat it as "proposal", or vice versa. It's operating at a syntactic level, not a semantic one. So saying "proosal proosal proosal" is, as far as the rules are concerned, just the same as saying "proposal proposal proposal". It's the very opposite of a synonym: effectively, it's making "proosal" and "proposal" different spellings of the same word.

> > and anyway your argument is irrelevant - 
> > to be relevant, you'd need to be saying that "lead" (pron. 
> > leed) the verb is synonymous with "direct" the verb, but 
> > "direct" the verb is not synonymous with "lead" (pron. leed) 
> > the verb. 
> > 
> > Not that we're dealing with the written word, in general - 
> > we're only dealing with the rules.
> 
> Yes, but the rules are communicated solely by the written word. 
> For words occurring in the dictionary and/or common English
> usage we have context to guide us toward understanding of the
> meaning, but for made-up words, there is no such context, and
> therefore no clear meaning.  
>
Well, exactly. Thus, we must rely on the rules. The rules say that "proosal" is interchangeable with "proposal".

> > Well, you could make an argument that they're precisely 
> > equivalent in use, but one is superior in aesthetics. 
>
> You could also argue that one is superior in meaning, 
>
No, I don't think you could. I don't think "superior in meaning" is a meaningful term.

> in which case the point of conflict is entirely relevant.
> The rules *do* care what the words mean.
>
And even if "superior in meaning" is meaningful, the rules care about *what* words mean, not about how well they mean them. If one word means the same thing as another, but means it "better", I don't see anything in the rules that prevents the less-well-meant word from working just fine.

> Because we have a made-up word, and the rule is not
> clear on what it means to be the substance of the
> equivalence between these two words, or the manner
> in which one is superior to the other, any number of
> interpretations can apply.
>
Maybe they can, but as you argue above, we should use standard interpretation for "equivalent", and I don't see how one word being superior (in whatever sense) to another affects the rules in any way.

uin.
-- 

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