Cheerskep wants us to use talk sounds to signify ugliness. What about the baby's goo-goo, wahhhh? That's not ugly to any loving parent, but the sound of pristine beauty! And let's go back to the battlefield where the platoon leader says shooo! while waving his arm, to alert his soldiers to a threat or to signal an attack. What's that? Again, I turn to Roy Harris, the linguist Cheerskep had never heard of before I mentioned him, yet quickly dismissed: Harris argues; First comes context and it determines the meaning assigned to the word. Just like Wittgenstein who said that changing the rules (context) changes the game.
Thus in the crib, a talk-sound can be lovely; in war, a command or a warning. And there are many other options, too many for even the best poet to exhaust. Context is key. Ho-hum. ZZZZZ! wc ________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sat, January 19, 2013 4:38:01 PM Subject: Re: wake up In a message dated 1/19/13 5:22:00 PM, [email protected] writes: > Of course he also coined > the phrase "talk-sounds" which through a life of hearing people talk > stupid is one of the stars. > A big wordsmith like me should maybe be satisfied to have coined a verbal star of any kind, but I like better your characterization of "talk-sounds" as, in effect, a star of ugliness rather than stupidity. "Talk-sounds" ain't as stupid as it sounds. (Which reminds me of Twain's comment that Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds.)
