I like to do tough crossword puzzles, especially Tte big, 250-word NYT Sunday puzzles edited by Will Shortz. He writes very clever and convoluted clues.
Some of Shortz's clues have only one answer, e.g. "Tinkers to Evers to ______." Others rely on word play and misdirection. They are sneaky, and some are very sneaky. What is "Notes from short people"? Who would refer to people as "short"? Isn't that insensitive? What are the notes, a musical term? Stickies? Things slipped between students in school? Then I got it: IOUs. "Short people" = people who can't cover a debt. My point: When I can't figure out the clue, that occurs because the meaning, i.e., what I am thinking of, doesn't jibe with the clue. Or its degree of jibeness is too iffy, too tenuous, too *unconvincing.* Cheerskep harps on the thought that is in my head, the answer, ultimately "the meaning" of the clue. (I think my story of crossword clues is a perfect analogy to what he is worried about.) I am harping on how the jibing occurs, how I know whether my answer suffices or whether it is an imprecise or improbable fit. William referred to "shared interpretations," which is similar to Wittgenstein's use in a language community. I want to examine and wrassle with the idea of how the inanimate thing preserves a way of signaling a notion to others remote in distance, time, and culture. BTW, Cheerskep often rails against "the" meaning of a word, and the examples he gives are all nouns, verbs, adjectives or adverbs. These are the four categories of English words that are open, that easily admit new words. Three other categories--prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions--are not open to new additions. They are function words and are used to connect words from the first four groups together in generally comprehensible statements. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Michael Brady
