Something I feel needs sharing

[Kelb_Panthera]

Since I commonly see this happen on this forum and the video I'm about to link explains it far better than I could, I'm just going to link.

Fair warning: a -lot- of this youtuber's videos are -very- political in nature. Peruse the rest of his stuff at your own risk.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R-aKyci8PMQ

[weckar]

For those of us not willing to sit through a 40 minute+ video vlog rant, care to provide a tl;dr?

[Sayt]

For those of us not willing to sit through a 40 minute+ video vlog rant, care to provide a tl;dr?

tl;dr, Appeals To Dictionary are bad, and people should acknowledge that people's use of language is dialectic, varied and fluid, and that often when people use a word, they won't be using it in the strict sense dictated by any given dictionary.

[Kelb_Panthera]

When it comes to parsing text, particularly in an argument, people have a tendency to focus on the words used rather than the ideas those words represent.

Say I were to say something potentially controversial about a cow. Somewhere along the way in the ensuing argument the focus subtly shifts from actual cows to the word 'cow' and from there arguments about the meaning of the word start getting bandied about instead of actually discussing the thing that the word 'cow' represents; a large bovine animal.

It's kinda difficult to explain in simple terms because of just how very subtle and fine a thing it is being discussed.

Here's the wikipedia article on semiotics; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

but seriously, it's only 40 minutes and Mike (the youtuber) does a pretty good job of explaining it. It's really worth watching the video.

[weckar]

Thank you. :smallsmile:

And, sorry to say, on my schedule there is no such thing as 'only' 40 minutes.