In a message dated 6/26/09 8:01:14 PM, [email protected] writes:
> I think we need to remind ourselves that what the words say is one thing, > what the author intends them to convey is another. we can't use either to > justify the other. > Behind the great majority of the uses of the phrase, "what the words say is one thing", it's likely there is profoundly confused thinking. I've come to see that it would take a short book to convey to most people the truth behind this line: Words don't "say" anything. They are sounds/scriptions that have by juxtaposition with notions (ideas, images, feelings, etc) become associated with those notions in our minds. They don't "say" those notions. No two of us have identical remembered experience. So, what notion arises in my mind when I hear a given word depends on notion associated with my hearing/reading the word in my past. If you utter/write to me the words "Eiffel Tower", what comes to my mind will be roughly similar to what's in yours. But when you utter/write "metaphor", "as-if", or "Chicago", my mind's associated notion will be wildly different from yours. I'm not sure what you're after with the phrase "we can't use either to justify the other", so I'll have no response to it. ************** Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000006)
