Communication
Mar. 4th, 2003 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ursangnomeIt is sometimes astounding that people manage to understand each other.
Take for example the simple question, "Who was the first President of the United States?" George Wasington comes immediately to mind. However, the true answer depends upon what you mean by "President".
Before the current US Constitution was written, there were the Articles of Confederation. Under those articles, the US had an official whose title was "President". So, the first guy to hold the title was not, in fact, old GW. The old general was merely the first to hold the position as stated in the current Constitution.
A little bit of semantics, from an obscure corner of history, but language is full of such things. I find it odd that we manage to come up with some sort of consensus, that everybody comes up with the same answer, even knowing that there are actually two to choose from that are more or less true.
That, of course, isn't even considering that some folks make a living out of abusing the consensus, intentionaly distorting or complicating the use of language for sake of profit or appearance. One wonders why we even bother to use such a horridly vague and abusable tool...
Take for example the simple question, "Who was the first President of the United States?" George Wasington comes immediately to mind. However, the true answer depends upon what you mean by "President".
Before the current US Constitution was written, there were the Articles of Confederation. Under those articles, the US had an official whose title was "President". So, the first guy to hold the title was not, in fact, old GW. The old general was merely the first to hold the position as stated in the current Constitution.
A little bit of semantics, from an obscure corner of history, but language is full of such things. I find it odd that we manage to come up with some sort of consensus, that everybody comes up with the same answer, even knowing that there are actually two to choose from that are more or less true.
That, of course, isn't even considering that some folks make a living out of abusing the consensus, intentionaly distorting or complicating the use of language for sake of profit or appearance. One wonders why we even bother to use such a horridly vague and abusable tool...
