Posted: Jun 04, 2014 6:49 am
It's important to recognize what dictionaries ARE, and ARE NOT.
What they ARE, are compendiums of the most commonly found usages of each word, as well as the most common pronunciations, where possible. What they are NOT, is legal authorities, which can REQUIRE a certain meaning or pronunciation be associated with each word.
What Thommo said at 2 is on point. People who are conversing must have the desire to communicate, first. When they discover that one is using a word to mean something other than they understand it to mean, if the goal IS to communicate, then appealing to a dictionary to clarify and come to some agreement what each person DOES mean, can facilitate that communication.
The most common way that I see things like dictionaries get MIS-used, is when someone declares that another person IS SAYING something which they are not saying, and demanding that because they have used a word to mean something which they did not intend it to mean, that they must be treated as though they DID intend it to mean that. This is essentially "arguing by trick."
The most common way I see people use dictionaries correctly, is to provide their own understanding of a word to the person saying it, so that they can WORK OUT what each other are intending to say. And once they agree about what is actually being said, then they can get down to arguing about the actual points being made.
If someone does insist on their own meanings for words, that's fine, but they will have to accept in turn, that since no one else will know what they are saying, that it will be very difficult for them to get a hearing for their ideas.
The process I have come to find best, utilizing sources such as dictionaries and thesauruses, is to use them to help those discussing something, to agree on terms, and THEN start bashing each other over the head with whatever LOGIC they want to follow.
If they fail to agree on the meanings of terms first, the rest of the discussion ends up being entirely pointless. Unfortunately, I have run into lots of people who eventually make it clear that their intent is not to argue logically after all, but simply to try to get away with defining themselves as being right, through manipulation of terminology, or refusal to use the same meaning for their own terms, throughout their argument.
But the most common game that I see played, is to make an error in LOGIC, and try to prove that it is not an error, by adjusting or hiding the logical error behind confused definitions of terms. Common example, someone correctly details examples of misbehavior by an entity; then claims that this proves that whatever labels are attached to the entity, are thereby proven to be the source of the misbehavior. The logical error, is to reverse the process of definitions first, declaring that the definition of an ideal is established by the behaviors of those claiming to act on it (not by it's own internal logic); and then once this reversal is in place, they declare that the ideal itself is therefore defective. Christianity is redefined as bad, not because any of it's tenets are examined and found to be inconsistent or negative, but because some people claiming to be Christian, have misbehaved very badly: the person arguing first claims that Christianity is defined by it's adherents, and then tries to state that therefore any time someone uses the label "Christianity," that they are referring to people who misbehave.
It is the logic which fails, but the dictionary which is blamed, or used as a foil.
What they ARE, are compendiums of the most commonly found usages of each word, as well as the most common pronunciations, where possible. What they are NOT, is legal authorities, which can REQUIRE a certain meaning or pronunciation be associated with each word.
What Thommo said at 2 is on point. People who are conversing must have the desire to communicate, first. When they discover that one is using a word to mean something other than they understand it to mean, if the goal IS to communicate, then appealing to a dictionary to clarify and come to some agreement what each person DOES mean, can facilitate that communication.
The most common way that I see things like dictionaries get MIS-used, is when someone declares that another person IS SAYING something which they are not saying, and demanding that because they have used a word to mean something which they did not intend it to mean, that they must be treated as though they DID intend it to mean that. This is essentially "arguing by trick."
The most common way I see people use dictionaries correctly, is to provide their own understanding of a word to the person saying it, so that they can WORK OUT what each other are intending to say. And once they agree about what is actually being said, then they can get down to arguing about the actual points being made.
If someone does insist on their own meanings for words, that's fine, but they will have to accept in turn, that since no one else will know what they are saying, that it will be very difficult for them to get a hearing for their ideas.
The process I have come to find best, utilizing sources such as dictionaries and thesauruses, is to use them to help those discussing something, to agree on terms, and THEN start bashing each other over the head with whatever LOGIC they want to follow.
If they fail to agree on the meanings of terms first, the rest of the discussion ends up being entirely pointless. Unfortunately, I have run into lots of people who eventually make it clear that their intent is not to argue logically after all, but simply to try to get away with defining themselves as being right, through manipulation of terminology, or refusal to use the same meaning for their own terms, throughout their argument.
But the most common game that I see played, is to make an error in LOGIC, and try to prove that it is not an error, by adjusting or hiding the logical error behind confused definitions of terms. Common example, someone correctly details examples of misbehavior by an entity; then claims that this proves that whatever labels are attached to the entity, are thereby proven to be the source of the misbehavior. The logical error, is to reverse the process of definitions first, declaring that the definition of an ideal is established by the behaviors of those claiming to act on it (not by it's own internal logic); and then once this reversal is in place, they declare that the ideal itself is therefore defective. Christianity is redefined as bad, not because any of it's tenets are examined and found to be inconsistent or negative, but because some people claiming to be Christian, have misbehaved very badly: the person arguing first claims that Christianity is defined by it's adherents, and then tries to state that therefore any time someone uses the label "Christianity," that they are referring to people who misbehave.
It is the logic which fails, but the dictionary which is blamed, or used as a foil.