Comments on: Semantic Leakiness

By: Micah Tillman » Blog Archive » Obama and Heigl and Cigarrettes

Micah Tillman » Blog Archive » Obama and Heigl and Cigarrettes — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:36:11 +0000

[...] to have my little laugh at Obama and lump him in with stupid celebrities all at the same time. (Semantic leakiness [...]

By: Gene Chase

Gene Chase — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:14:50 +0000

This all seems so cogno-intellectual to me!

By: Micah Tillman

Micah Tillman — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:24:41 +0000

*laugh* Squishiness? What a great word to introduce into academico-theoretic contexts (where you use terms like “academic0-theoretic). Thanks for the references!

By: Gene Chase

Gene Chase — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:06:08 +0000

Squishiness. As a linguist, I find interesting articles by John Robert Ross who introduced the term “squishiness” to linguistics. I tried to search the web for his first article on noun squishiness, but I can’t find it. I it think appeared in some ephemeral literature like a technical report. (I like the term “ephemera,” a technical term that librarians use to mean “our search tools won’t help us to find it.”) However, two conference presentations do find their way onto the web. The first generalizes to other categories besides nouns:

Ross, John R. 1972. Endstation Hauptwort: The category squish. In P. M. Peranteau, J. N. Levi, and G. C. Phares, eds., Papers from the eighth regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society, pp 316–328. Chicago.

The second sharpens his definition for nouns:

Ross, John Robert. 1973. A fake NP squish. In Charles-James N. Bailey and Roger W. Shuy, eds, New Ways of Analyzing Variation in English. pp 96-140. Washington: Georgetown University Press.

By: Micah Tillman » Blog Archive » Varieties of Choice, and Whether Christians Can Be For Them

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:37:59 +0000

[...] On the tension between logic and semantics, see my post on semantic leakiness. [...]

By: Micah Tillman » Blog Archive » Perversion Leakiness?

Micah Tillman » Blog Archive » Perversion Leakiness? — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:29:37 +0000

[...] reasoning involves a kind of Venn Diagrams approach, like my discussion of “semantic leakiness”: the circles tend to be leaky, and if you puncture one by having it intersect another, [...]

By: Micah Tillman » Blog Archive » McCain Should Pick a Dem VP

Micah Tillman » Blog Archive » McCain Should Pick a Dem VP — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:28:27 +0000

[...] Those two may be logically equivalent, but they are semantically different. [...]

By: Micah Tillman

Micah Tillman — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:15:18 +0000

Okay, I gotcha.

The usual opposition between Plato and Aristotle is seen in the “School of Athens” by Raphael. Plato pointing up, Aristotle gesturing as if to say we should remain grounded.

So I see what you’re saying, even though Mr. Stevens is no doubt right that Aristotle wouldn’t like to be associated with postmodernism or squishiness (what a great word! “Squishiness.” And my Firefox spell-check even recognizes it. Awesome).

In other words, your Plato-Aristotle opposition is pedagogically helpful, in this context (along with Mr. Steven’s qualification).

*grin* So much fun!

Thanks for the explication (another fun word)!

By: Andrew Stevens

Andrew Stevens — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 21:32:14 +0000

Dissection. Aristotle was neither feminist nor post-modernist nor semantic-focused. Which isn’t to say there isn’t something to your theory, though. I only object to where you’re placing Aristotle within it.

By: jeffsdeepthoughts

jeffsdeepthoughts — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 20:10:14 +0000

I always get nervous when folks with more philsophical background than me start nicely asking me to expand on my thoughts. Usually they end up looking like Socrates and I end up looking like those countless doofuses (doofi?) in his dialouges who suddenly discover their ideas don’t hold at all…
Nonetheless, let me give it a try.
There is one way of approaching the world that I’d identify as modern, Platonic, male, logical-rational. This way of approaching the world views principles as prior to experience. It assumes that words have absolute definitions and we can decide things in the abstract. I call it Platonic because some formulations of his theory of forms seem to cast them as overaching ideas. I call it modern (as opposed to post modern) because it progresses via logic, creates heirarchies, and is interested in distilling abstractions.
When you pointed out that Nazis were socialist you were engaging in a definitional sort-of move. Your statement is almost a tautology, I think. There is this class of beliefs, called socialism. One member of that class, one specific flavor is Nazism. Therefore, Nazis are socialists.

There is this other way of approaching the world. I’d identify it as Aristolean, feminist, post modern, semantic-focused. Aristotle seemed wasn’t afraid of abstractions but he begin with the specifics and operated from them rather than beginning in generalities.
Feminist because well… I don’t know why it is. But it is. It emphasizes the context of discourse. The why’s and the who’s as much as the whats. Post modern because it’s a both/and way of looking at things. (As opposed to an either/or way of looking at things)The modern view works digitally: either X is part of the definition of Y or it is not. The post modern view says that the categories are squishier. Y might be sort-of associated with X. It might kind-of be part of the definition.

Within this way of approaching the world, somebody is entitled to know why you’d state that the Nazis are socialists. Whether or not it’s definitionally true might be important. But why it’s mentioned at that juncture is also important. Somebody might cry ‘foul’ not because this claim isn’t true; they might cry ‘foul’ because making the claim prejudices one against socialism as a whole.

Does this make sense or should I prepare myself for a Socratic disection?