--- William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >>> I don't accept that,
> >
> > You don't accept that the use of the word "religion", or that the
> > intent was
> > that use?
> >
> >> You don't accept that you are mistaken about this usage?
> >>
> >>> I'm perfectly willing to argue that many
> >>> people in these days worship capitalism as a religion, quite
> >>> seriously.
> >>
> >> That would be a non sequitur.
> >
> > No it isn't.
> >
>
> It is actually. First Andrew argued that the definition 'A cause,
> principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion'
> meant religion qua religion and was not a figurative usage of the word.
>
> Then he said " I'm perfectly willing to argue that many people in these
> days worship capitalism as a religion, quite seriously."
>
> Now it seems to me that for this to make any sense he must mean
> something other than "I'm perfectly willing to argue that many people
> in these days pursue capitalism with zeal, quite seriously."
>
> But if he does mean something different than that, then he is using a
> different definition of religion than the one he used in the first
> paragraph.
>
> Hence it is a non sequitur.
The overloading of words has some serious consequneces to comunication in
english. Unlike other languages we seem to refuse the creation of new words
and so, old words get reused in new ways. This has seriously obsfiscating
consequences to the transmision of ideas and consepts. One must gain an ever
more precise insite into the intended meaning rather than the possible
meanings of the resulting message.
Take the word "depricated" for instance. It holds two meanings the most
prominant to an engeneer would be to make something obsolete. But to a
writter saying something is depricated means that it is of poor quality.
To a snowboarder a guy whoe is "sick" is very good at performing some set of
manuvers on the snow, but to a doctor the same guy sounds as if the person
might need the doctors assistence.
What about "guy" in the previous example? To anyone over 40 the "guy"
specifies male gender. To many under 40 "guy" is not gender specific. One
might "hang" with the "guys" and all of them would be feemale. They also
would be in no peril, as "hang" simply means to congragate.
In the software feild one might use the word "this", "self", "construct",
"entity", "class", "object", "aspect", or any of thousands of words to mean 2
or more very specific things. Without previous experience and specific insite
into the intended meaning converstaions about software can become quite
confusing.
=====
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Jan William Coffey
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