Okay but that’s a dishonest argument. Sure reality is just perception and perception is unique to the individual. All that said words have meaning which we have agreed upon. Otherwise I could write gibberish, call it meaningful text, and prove anything. It’s the fact that words have specific meanings which makes them useful. Otherwise it’s baby talk and that’s cute but not great for communication.
Yes, communication works best when people agree on what words mean, and a great, great many people have agreed that “literally” means things other than “literally”. It’s not gibberish to use it as such.
It’s not a dishonest argument at all. Language is not prescriptive. It’s constantly evolving. New words are invented all the time, and old words take on new meanings all the time.
Do you ever use “awesome” to mean “super cool”? Congratulations, you’re misusing the word! How about “egregious” as in a bad error? Wrong! How about “fantastic” as meaning “wonderful” or “great”? Also wrong.
Even when words do have specific meaning, if you don’t know the meaning they are useless to you, so it might as well be gibberish. Can you speak Swahili? Does that mean it’s gibberish? Of course not.
You’ve obviously given this some thought. I’m curious what you think of an example. Think about this sentence: “The theory of gravity can help explain things.” And then this one: “Evolution is just a theory.” Is there a difference in what the word “theory” means?
The context of what each speaker is saying matters. Words don’t have much meaning in isolation except for simple ones like “no”. You could have a degree in the Philosophy of Science and still struggle to define “theory” accurately and succinctly.
One speaker is using the word as a positive thing (accurately). After all, a theory is the best we can say about how the world works. The second speaker is using the word pejoratively. In that sense it actually doesn’t mean the same thing, and any scientist would argue that the second person doesn’t understand what they mean when scientists say “theory”.
Note: I said when scientists say theory. Words don’t have inherent meaning, so the speaker matters. The speaker can only hope their audience takes their words the way they’re intended. There’s no guarantee that they will.
The second speaker is trying to refute science by quoting scientists, yet using the word in a way that scientists don’t. That’s obviously dumb. But it is the way that most non-scientists use the word, so you could say the second speaker is just confused about what scientists have been saying when they use the word. The scientists’ goal should be to correct the second speaker’s understanding of what scientists mean when they use the word. The word itself is not actually important. You can get across the meaning without ever using the word itself.
So who’s right and who’s wrong? Neither. It’s a simple misunderstanding of how scientists uses the word when they speak. Unless, of course, the second speaker knows the scientific definition, and is pretending to not know in order to pander to an audience.
I agree with that. In my ideal world, the person who said “evolution is just a theory” would hear the scientist explain the difference and think “Ah, using the word ‘theory’ like I have before is maybe not wrong in some contexts, but it’s causing confusion and in that sense it weakens our language. I will therefore be careful and use another word instead, perhaps ‘speculation’, to sharpen our shared language into a more precise tool for understanding each other. Since words mean what we all agree they mean, they are infinitely malleable and beautifully fragile, but we all have the opportunity, and duty, to influence the direction as we head into the future.”
Okay but that’s a dishonest argument. Sure reality is just perception and perception is unique to the individual. All that said words have meaning which we have agreed upon. Otherwise I could write gibberish, call it meaningful text, and prove anything. It’s the fact that words have specific meanings which makes them useful. Otherwise it’s baby talk and that’s cute but not great for communication.
Yes, communication works best when people agree on what words mean, and a great, great many people have agreed that “literally” means things other than “literally”. It’s not gibberish to use it as such.
It’s not a dishonest argument at all. Language is not prescriptive. It’s constantly evolving. New words are invented all the time, and old words take on new meanings all the time.
Do you ever use “awesome” to mean “super cool”? Congratulations, you’re misusing the word! How about “egregious” as in a bad error? Wrong! How about “fantastic” as meaning “wonderful” or “great”? Also wrong.
Even when words do have specific meaning, if you don’t know the meaning they are useless to you, so it might as well be gibberish. Can you speak Swahili? Does that mean it’s gibberish? Of course not.
You’ve obviously given this some thought. I’m curious what you think of an example. Think about this sentence: “The theory of gravity can help explain things.” And then this one: “Evolution is just a theory.” Is there a difference in what the word “theory” means?
The context of what each speaker is saying matters. Words don’t have much meaning in isolation except for simple ones like “no”. You could have a degree in the Philosophy of Science and still struggle to define “theory” accurately and succinctly.
One speaker is using the word as a positive thing (accurately). After all, a theory is the best we can say about how the world works. The second speaker is using the word pejoratively. In that sense it actually doesn’t mean the same thing, and any scientist would argue that the second person doesn’t understand what they mean when scientists say “theory”.
Note: I said when scientists say theory. Words don’t have inherent meaning, so the speaker matters. The speaker can only hope their audience takes their words the way they’re intended. There’s no guarantee that they will.
The second speaker is trying to refute science by quoting scientists, yet using the word in a way that scientists don’t. That’s obviously dumb. But it is the way that most non-scientists use the word, so you could say the second speaker is just confused about what scientists have been saying when they use the word. The scientists’ goal should be to correct the second speaker’s understanding of what scientists mean when they use the word. The word itself is not actually important. You can get across the meaning without ever using the word itself.
So who’s right and who’s wrong? Neither. It’s a simple misunderstanding of how scientists uses the word when they speak. Unless, of course, the second speaker knows the scientific definition, and is pretending to not know in order to pander to an audience.
I agree with that. In my ideal world, the person who said “evolution is just a theory” would hear the scientist explain the difference and think “Ah, using the word ‘theory’ like I have before is maybe not wrong in some contexts, but it’s causing confusion and in that sense it weakens our language. I will therefore be careful and use another word instead, perhaps ‘speculation’, to sharpen our shared language into a more precise tool for understanding each other. Since words mean what we all agree they mean, they are infinitely malleable and beautifully fragile, but we all have the opportunity, and duty, to influence the direction as we head into the future.”