Local Artist's War Art in Banned

>>< Nope, the straw man argument was yours when you said that I had claimed that context could not change the meaning of words in the absence of homonyms. >

Nope, because I most certainly didn't say that you made that claim. See how you like to just make things up?<<

Like how you made up that I claimed that the law should bend to the every whim of a single individual. Again, double standard.

Let's parse a few more sentences shall we?

Yours: "again, this is tripe. Your link most certainly shows that my definition of change is correct.

What you are suggesting is that context can alter meaning of homonyms: "

Not what I suggested. What I suggested was that context could change the meaning of words. I then provided a strong example of one way in which context does change the meaning of words, from a high-school English test information, which cited homonyms through implication of context without using the word "homonym". So yeah, here you are putting the word "homonym" in my mouth.

>><This would be tangentializing - if the word is ever adopted>

Its most certainly been adopted in the online community, thanks.<<

Weak. Such adoption isn't documented in either of the two sources you've used to document accepted definitions of words. Accepted definitions of words having been a strong element of your own arguments. Nice to see your double-standard is consistent.

>><This phrase is utterly useless. It doesn't support anything as a result of being muddled beyond intelligibility. The phrases "become different in essence" and "shift from one meaning to another" are so vague as to allow for a wide variety of interpretations, at least one of which given context would make them synonymous. >

its most certainly useful, and not muddled at all. You are claiming that I intended to convey that context could not properly place a homonym in a phrase or sentence (ie shifting from 'definition 1' in a dictionary to 'defintion 2' when in fact what I was stating is that context can not change a word's meaning to something new or totally different, particularly the opposite of what it meant.<<

Yet you remove the context of the phrase which I said was useless.

>> I used the word "change" to mean 'become different in essence'" not 'shift from one meaning to another' - <<

shift - several definitions most notably move from one position to another
meaning - several definitions, in context most notably "definition"
"shift from one meaning to another" - in context - "move from one definition to another definition"

become - several definitions -- implies "change" in context
different - not the same - opposites are not the same although things which are different are not necessarily opposites
essence - several definitions -- requires context to understand it's meaning -- in context means "essential definition of words" (what portion of their meaning remains when all context is removed)
"become different in essence" -- "change to an essentially different definition"

"move from one definition to another definition"
"change to a different definition"

hmmm... so if we overlay these interpretations against your sentence

>> I used the word "change" to mean "change to an essentially different definition" not "move from one definition to another" <<

The various definitions of a homonym which are found in a dictionary are essentially different -- that's why the dictionary provides multiple definitions... hence "move from one definition to another" in this context is the same as "change to an essentially different definition".

Unless you'd like to support your argument with context that supplies additional, essential (required) meaning to be understood. Would fit nicely with your double-standard.

>> Maybe you should stop accusing other people of being incapable of comprehending the English language, and start examining your own comprehension abilities. <<

You should really avoid personal attacks if you're going to tell others to stop making personal attacks. Or go brush up on that ESL, one of the two.

>> <They aren't opposite meanings... never have been>

Uh, yes, they are. Stating that the individual's opinion on law was important, and then stating that only the collective opinion is important is changing from one stance to its opposite. <<

Lets not get mired in something other than what you mired us in to begin with shall we? Lets focus on the specific sentence in question. In particular, the order of words which you claimed specifically made it the opposite of what I had intended.

The exact opposite of "me, you and everyone else" is "no one" (or technically "neither me, nor you, nor anyone else")
The exact opposite of "everyone, including you and me" is "no one" (or technically "no one, not even you and me")
Therefore because the opposite of both phrases is "no one", both phrases are synonymous

QED

Further... "individuals within a group" is not the exact opposite of "a group formed of individuals" any more than Texas is the exact opposite of the United States or

>><The scope of accepted definitions for the word "change" does not include any phrase which is synonymous with "change within the scope of accepted definitions".>

Again, do read. Do you know what a parenthetical clause is? The scope of accepted definitions are part of the ESSENCE of the word - the core meaning of the word in question.<<

Yes I know what a parenthetical clause is. It is specifically, a clause placed within or set to the side of an existing clause (part of its context) to provide additional meaning. The "scope of accepted definitions" is not part of the essence of the word "change" because the word "change". The word change can be understood without the addition of "scope of accepted definitions", therefore this parenthetical clause is not part of its essence because it is not essential to the word.

QED

>>You keep trying to simply wiggle and wind your way into frustrating me with terrible debate tactics, and it won't work - sorry.<<

Who's wiggling here?

>>For instance, caterpillar can transform into a moth, but its still the same species, it cannot change its species, ie, become different in essence.<<

Aha. An analogy. Yes I understand the meaning of this analogy and you're wrong that it's analogous to what I've been saying. You're saying I said "due north" when I meant "due south" (exact opposites). What actually happened is that I said "north by northwest" and you interpreted "due north".

>><I know what a homonym is>

are you sure?<<

very

>><Salil: Context can not change the meaning of words.

ike: it can - example of contextual selection between homonyms >

Right - original premise followed by a bogus straw man rebuttal. As I have indicated time and time again, the contextual selection between homonyms DOES NOT change the meaning of the word, it changes THE WORD. Change and change are TWO DIFFERENT WORDS<<

Change is a number of different words (homonyms), that's true, at least three being transitive verb, intransitive verb and noun. You have yet to provide an accepted definition for the word "change" which includes your parenthetical clause, which would therefore be a homonym of the word "change". Therefore you have insisted that in your own statement, context changed the meaning of your use of the word "change", not that it substituted a homonym for the word change.

>><Salil: Obvious context indicated that I meant "context can not change the meaning of words beyond the scope of accepted definitions".
ike: "change beyond the scope of accepted definitions" is not a synonym of "change" - therefore the previous statement is a contradiction QED >

No, I was pointing out that your rebuttal in fact relied on a fallacious assumption, that homonyms were the SAME word, when they aren't, which incidentally had NOTHING to do with your attempts to reverse your earlier statements. "change beyond the scope of accepted defintions" is a phrase that conveys, with regards to words, the meaning of 'become different in essence'<<

No my rebuttal did not rely on the fact that homonyms are the same word. My rebuttal relied on the fact that you have failed to provide a homonym.

However, okay, lets substitute...

"Context does not cause the meaning of words to become different in essence."

Hmm... that statement still requires a contextual qualifier that's not present within the definition of any of the words within the sentence. It requires that you assume that by "words" you mean "individual words" (as opposed to "phrases") and that you have also qualified "individual words" to omit homonyms, since the meaning of one homonym is different in essence from the meaning of another. So you have yet to provide an example of how context can't change the essential meaning of words that doesn't require context in order to provide additional meaning not within the definitions of those words (homonyms though they may be) in order to be understood.

>> the definitions of a word are its essence - without them it is meaningless <<

Moreover, there are some specific examples of words for which their essence lacks meaning and can only be understood in context. Pronouns are one example. Any pronoun ("it" for example) has an essence (definition) which lacks meaning, making it impossible to understand the meaning of the word "it" without surrounding context (except when the word "it" is the subject as in this case). QED

>> Couldn't come up with your own snappy put down, you had to use mine? Its poor form to retort a QED with another QED. <<

hmm... personal attack... double standard...

Now that you've attacked the character (or rather style) of my ... uh... snub... would you like to address the content? I'm not sure if you've realized this, but I was taking some care to place the QEDs at the end of proofs which you have yet to disprove, rather than simply tacking them on to the end of the message as a whole as you did.

>> <ike: I suggested that context can alter the meaning of words. You claimed that it could not alter the meaning of words that are not homonyms. Aside from being a non sequitur, it contradicts your previous claim that obvious context changed the meaning of the word "change" in your original assertion to something which is not a homonym. QED >

Its not a non sequitor at all. I didn't say the MEANING changed when context selects the appropriate homonym, either, I stated the WORD changed. And arguing that 'beyond its scope of accepted definitions' was argued as a homonym is patently ridiculous - it was a PARENTETICAL clause clarifying SPECIFICALLY what change meant - to become different in essence, and as to your WTF:

www.google.com/search <<

Yes, you'd already shown me Google's definition results. You had not however provided a homonym. A parenthetical clause is not part of the accepted definition of a word to which the parenthetical clause is applied. The parenthetical clause is part of the context of that word.

>> <A word is a language unit (the one you chose to focus on with your original assertion that "context does not cause the meanings of words to change"). The unit begins with the first letter and ends with the last letter. Anything before the first letter or after the last letter is outside of the unit of the word -- surrounding it. The order of words within a sentence does not change the letters within the word, therefore it exists outside of and surrounding the word. And as you've pointed out, the order of words helps to determine their interpretation. >

This has nothing to do with the subject at hand and is merely a distraction <<

No it has quite a lot to do with, since you seem to believe that a parenthetical clause is part of the accepted definition of a word to which the clause is attached.

>> <Your assertion that the order of words in a phrase is integral to the phrase is true -- however -- it doesn't speak to any arguments about changes to the meaning of the words. As I pointed out, you chose words as the unit of measure for the scope of this discussion. You've contradicted yourself twice in the effort to prove your assertion using that unit of measure -- and appear to be now sliding the argument away from the unit of measure you chose to a new unit of measure>

This is beyond absurd on your part. You tried to claim that the PHRASE "x y z" was identical to "z x y", simply because they both contained the same words, and that the CONTEXT altered the meaning. WRONG. The phrase "z x y" is NOT THE SAME PHRASE and "z y z" and THEREFORE the meaning is different - context has change nothing. Each phrase, in isolation, is independently different from the other. <<

Proven false above.

>> <Where did "his, hers and theirs only" come from and why is it relevant? You provided no context for me to interpret it. It could be an example of something other than what I actually said, it could be an interpretation of what you previously said, or it could be something all together different. I'm inclined to think you're implying that I said that "mine, yours, and everyone else's" meant the same thing as "his, hers, and theirs only" -- which is actually what you said>

Well, most people with average comprehension skills would ascertain that the phrase I used as a contradictory example was illustrative of a phrase that actually contradicts the phrase "yours, mine, and everyone else's" in order to show how no matter how hard one tried, context could not change the first phrase to mean the second. <<

You want to talk about most people now do you?

Let's take a poll, and see how many people agree that
"everyone, including you and I" is the EXACT OPPOSITE (your words) of "me, you and everyone else"

Again, personal attack. Double standard.

>> <Context doesn't stop at the end of a sentence or a paragraph. In retrospect your repeated refusal to accept a dictionary definition of the word "important" that was more critical. Had you accepted the dictionary definition of the word "important", it wouldn't have mattered whether I was talking about the opinions of individuals or of public values. However where context is concerned a multitude of sentences and paragraphs and posts prior to the sentence in question are more important than the order of the order in which I placed "you", "me" and "everyone" here. You misinterpreted it because you omitted a huge volume of sentences and paragraphs prior from your interpretation. If you read a 500 page book, one presumes you should have a better understanding of the author's intent by the end of the book. >

No, what happened was that you insisted that your opinion, and every one else's individual opinion, was important legally. <<

I had already provided context for a dictionary-strict definition of the word "important" which you ignored.

>> This was repeated time and time again throughout the thread, which is why no amount of context could reverse the meaning of your assertion. <<

My clarification was apologized for and repeated time and time again throughout the thread and ignored by you every time.

>> The order in which you placed "yours, mine, and everyone else's" was critically important and indicated that you most certainly believed that "your" opinion and "my" opinion were important legally. <<

Nope. See above. And please go back and read again as you seem to have still failed to do.

>> And all of this has been a terribly pathetic attempt on your part to sink the argument with semantics, an endeavor you won't be successful in. <<

I've been supremely successful in giving you the rope you've hung yourself with. You've buried yourself under an avalanche of fallacies which have merely supported my assertion that you have a double-standard and ignore context when it doesn't serve your own agenda.

>> <You did not originally assert that context could not change the meaning of phrases, you asserted that it could not change the meaning of words. Your assertion that it can not change the meaning of phrases to their opposite is new>

It is not new at all, after it became clear, on Sunday, that you were trying to claim context changed the meaning of your entire phrase, I addressed it. <<

You used the word "words" to mean "phrase", leading us here. All of which could have been easily avoided if you'd simply said what you meant.

>> And seriously, come up with something other than QED, its right sad that you don't have the ability to utilize your own snarkiness. <<

It's interesting to note that you place a high value on one's ability to be snarky in a creative manner. Yet again, personal attack, double standard.

>> <Having failed to prove that context can not change the meaning of words>

I haven't failed to do this at all. But in fact, the onus to prove that it CAN is on you - and all you've done so far is show that contextual selection allows one to place the appropriate homonym, ie the correct WORD (not meaning) within the given text, which is actually something I demonstrated in order to clarify my point prior to your adoption of the assertion. <<

Okay, well it's thoroughly proven now. Largely by your words.

>> You can not emply context to CHANGE the MEANING of a word - dog cannot mean cat, right cannot mean wrong, and moron will never mean intelligent, no matter how much context you throw at it. " <<

Good luck convincing people that "everyone, including you and I" is the EXACT OPPOSITE of "me, you and everyone else" or that "the opinions of members of a group" is the EXACT OPPOSITE of "the opinions of a group and its members" and that it is as plainly obvious as the difference between "cat and dog" or "right and wrong". Good luck convincing people that context is incapable of making "everyone, including you and I" or "me, you and everyone else" synonymous or that it's incapable of making "the opinions of a group and its members" synonymous with "the opinions of members of a group".

It's probably true that there are some limitations on what context can do. Though whereas I've proven that it can change the meaning of words beyond their accepted definitions (homonyms), it probably can't make the phrase "exact opposite" any more believable in the context of this conversation.

How's it feel out on that limb?

Hardly dastardly and underhanded, more like drunk and stupid. Why do you want to know, so you can try yourself?

I intitially had a very open profile, which had my education and employment history clearly listed, which made it extremely easy to track me down, as a couple of people did with utterly friendly intentions.

A couple other people thought they were tough guys. One guy even asserted that if I didnt DRIVE 300 miles to Dallas to "get my ass kicked" he was going to show up at my place of employment to do it. At the time, my place of employment was a bar, where I worked as a bouncer - which amounts to a terroristic threat. I actually still work there, for a couple weeks more, before I fully immerse myself back in military life.

There were, at one point two entire tribes devoted to nothing more than attacking and deriding me.

>> As I thought I explained, I used "." and removed all the personal information so the content of the posts would be considered, not the person who wrote them. <<

If it was an issue for you, I agree with removing the personal information. Changing your name to "." on the other hand fails to achieve your stated objective of making people focus on the content and not on the person. Your personality is still evident, regardless of your lack of name, so what you've succeeded in doing, is giving yourself an outward appearance that is likely to lead people to think of you as a troll (because giving them less to go on is not going to make them stop assessing your character). People are probably more likely to ad hom you this way (although their ability to do it creatively is diminished). You may even see fewer ad homs in their messages while their desire to ad hom is increased. There's a bit of psychology in it. People generally don't like to feel that someone else has an "unfair advantage" over them. Whether it's true or not, being unable to identify someone in conversation encourages the feeling of their having an unfair advantage. Hence sometimes in films it's portrayed that someone being interrogated is unable to identify the interrogator as a scary intimidation tactic. Online we've grown accustomed to people having pseudonyms, so a generic pseudonym doesn't produce the same effect. When you move to a pseudonym that no longer serves the function of identification, that puts you (psychologically) back in the position of the unidentified interrogator (although the surrounding circumstances make the effect less severe). So even a very generic name like "politic" (note the neutral nature of the suggested pseud'nym) is likely to get you a better result that will be closer to the result you'd hoped for.