I wrote: "I believe that any two given notions are ALWAYS different to some degree, and often VERY different."
Michael responded: "I'm thinking of a notion. I'll give you a clue by sending these electronic shapes to your location." I presume you mean the letters that appear now on my computer screen. Such things are what I have alluded to (without a tedious explanation, of which I realize I supply a surfeit) as "scriptions". Michael goes on: "Here is my notion, in the form of two related questions: (1) How do you calibrate "very," as in "very different"?" I don't. Consider the state of North Dakota. Now consider the opening scene of HAMLET. Now consider the taste of rum raisin ice cream. How would you "calibrate" the very great differences between the three notions? The words 'very' and 'very great' are fodder for a long essay. Recently I was glancing at a group of anthologized mid-twentieth-century essays about "meaninglessness". It's astonishing how at-sea those very subtle thinkers were. Their analytic powers were strong, and the ability to make "distinctions", but they stumbled about in a wilderness because of the unquestioned assumptions they brought to their labors. For example, they might phrase their essay-question as this: "Why is it that some utterances have a meaning, and others don't?" They thus assumed it's obvious that some utterances do indeed "have meaning" (when in fact none does); and, worse, they would actually fail to make themselves spell out exactly what they have in mind when they say 'meaning'. In his 1937 essay, "Meaninglessness", the eminent (at the time) British philosopher A. C. Ewing bent himself to examining "verifiability" as a criterion for "meaningful". This is from that much-reprinted essay: [In this article I shall use the term 'positivist' for short to mean simply "upholder of any of the verification theories which I shall consider". I shall use "meaning" in the same sense in which it would be used, say, in the Strand Magazine.] You can imagine how agitated I, Cheerskep, would have been if I'd been able bring my 2009 skull's lump of links and inventory to read that article in 1937. In sum, I will today skip trying to describe the varying notions in my mind when I use either 'very' or 'very great'. "(2) How important or crucial to your assertion is the degree of "very"ness?" It depends on the notions I'm comparing. I don't feel I have to vigorously maintain that my notion of Gibraltar and my notion of diabetes are very different. Who would deny it? It's when two people have notions they think are "the same", but I feel sure the notions are very different, and thus the discussion is careening into the woods -- that's when I feel it's important to convey the very-ness of the bigness of the differences. You'll recall I got into this "Marks" thread because I perceived (say I) large differences in the notions of various listers who appeared to feel they were all discussing "the same thing". Perhaps the greatest fun combined with the greatest frustration is when I can get people to focus on the variety of notions behind a very common and never questioned word. One example I've used comes with the word 'to have'. I wrote this in another venue: "I wrote an article, "The Amazing Act of 'Having'". Said "having" isn't just an invisible event, it's imaginary, a verbal dodge, "having" never happens. I sent it to the Reader's Digest, but they claim they don't have it." The vast majority of people who read that immediately decide the writer must be deranged. I can imagine A.C. Ewing saying, "Good Lord. What d'you suppose the simple-minded colonial can be on about? Poor chap is bonkers." ************** Make your summer sizzle with fast and easy recipes for the grill. (http://food.aol.com/grilling?ncid=emlcntusfood00000006)
