Philosophy
Yes, I was listening to Little Feat on the way home last night and the phrase "tripe my guacamole" stuck in my head. As "tripe" is a noun, the sentence is not syntactically a well formed sentence, forget the fact that the combination of words is not meaningful. Yet, it does seem to convey something.
It started me thinking about a talk a saw in grad school with a philosopher of language whose name I do not remember. But s/he was discussing the fact that words do have phonological meaning, that is, the sounds we use as verbal symbols for words do have psychological pull in terms of meaning. S/he used an example where we were going to replace the words "yes" and "no" with either "blip" or "bloop" and said that somehow it was obvious which of the two ought to represent the affirmative and which the negative.
But etymology is often filled with accidents, so there are some words that despite not being onomatopoetic in that they are not directly derived from a sound in the world do sound like they should and others that do not. "Perky," I've always thought is exactly the right word for perky. So, too, "lonely." "Pizazz," is good, but its converse "zzazip" seems to have it even more. "Sanguine," though seems phonologically inappropriate. It sounds depressing, not upbeat.
So, what other words sound like what they mean and which ones don't?
- Whose Speech Act Is This?
The notion of an utterance seems simple enough. I have a thought I want to express. I select words and a tone in which to express it. I say those words in that way. But what if the words aren't yours, but you still say them? Quoting someone else still...
- Deep Tautologies
I love language. I had cause in the car last weekend to repeatedly utter the sentence, "We'll get there when we get there." Now if understood literally, the sentence is what we call a tautology, that is, it is a sentence that because of its form is...
- Silent Letters
The English language is an odd mishmash of German, Dutch, Norse, French, Celtic, and Latin. So many pieces that don't fit together so well have resulted in a language that is really odd. Consider how many words in English have utterly irrelevant letter...
- “pad Kid Poured Curd Pulled Cod” X 10
"MIT Researchers Say They Have Created The Trickiest Tongue Twister To Date" Try and say “pad kid poured curd pulled cod” 10 times fast. by Steve Annear December 5th, 2013 Boston Daily The old saying “Sally sold seashells by...
- An English Language Curiosity
"Why Do People Use Nope Even Though No Is Shorter?" by Quora Contributor March 8th, 2013 Slate This is an example of sound change, and there are a few hypotheses we can consider as to why this sound change came about. The first hypothesis is that this...
Philosophy
Tripe My Guacamole, Baby or Hooked on Phonics
Yes, I was listening to Little Feat on the way home last night and the phrase "tripe my guacamole" stuck in my head. As "tripe" is a noun, the sentence is not syntactically a well formed sentence, forget the fact that the combination of words is not meaningful. Yet, it does seem to convey something.
It started me thinking about a talk a saw in grad school with a philosopher of language whose name I do not remember. But s/he was discussing the fact that words do have phonological meaning, that is, the sounds we use as verbal symbols for words do have psychological pull in terms of meaning. S/he used an example where we were going to replace the words "yes" and "no" with either "blip" or "bloop" and said that somehow it was obvious which of the two ought to represent the affirmative and which the negative.
But etymology is often filled with accidents, so there are some words that despite not being onomatopoetic in that they are not directly derived from a sound in the world do sound like they should and others that do not. "Perky," I've always thought is exactly the right word for perky. So, too, "lonely." "Pizazz," is good, but its converse "zzazip" seems to have it even more. "Sanguine," though seems phonologically inappropriate. It sounds depressing, not upbeat.
So, what other words sound like what they mean and which ones don't?
- Whose Speech Act Is This?
The notion of an utterance seems simple enough. I have a thought I want to express. I select words and a tone in which to express it. I say those words in that way. But what if the words aren't yours, but you still say them? Quoting someone else still...
- Deep Tautologies
I love language. I had cause in the car last weekend to repeatedly utter the sentence, "We'll get there when we get there." Now if understood literally, the sentence is what we call a tautology, that is, it is a sentence that because of its form is...
- Silent Letters
The English language is an odd mishmash of German, Dutch, Norse, French, Celtic, and Latin. So many pieces that don't fit together so well have resulted in a language that is really odd. Consider how many words in English have utterly irrelevant letter...
- “pad Kid Poured Curd Pulled Cod” X 10
"MIT Researchers Say They Have Created The Trickiest Tongue Twister To Date" Try and say “pad kid poured curd pulled cod” 10 times fast. by Steve Annear December 5th, 2013 Boston Daily The old saying “Sally sold seashells by...
- An English Language Curiosity
"Why Do People Use Nope Even Though No Is Shorter?" by Quora Contributor March 8th, 2013 Slate This is an example of sound change, and there are a few hypotheses we can consider as to why this sound change came about. The first hypothesis is that this...