On Mon, 5 Aug 2002, Katrina wrote:

> >Of course words have objective meanings.  They would be useless
> >if they didn't.
>
> If no people existed, would the words still have meanings?  Of course
> not.  The only meaning is inside the minds of people.  Therefore, it is
> subjective.  Dictionaries just do their best to document the most common
> meanings.

If no people ever existed, there would be no words, so what could
it mean to ask whether they would still have meanings.  You might
as well ask whether, if no people existed, they would still need
to eat.  The need to eat and the meanings of words both
presuppose the existence of people, but this doesn't make them
subjective.

> >  To say that meanings are objective is only to say
> >that they are external to the intention of the speaker.  They
> >*don't* mean just whatever the speaker wants them to mean.
>
> Words can only mean what the speaker intends.  I'm sure the first person
> who said "Hey man, you're cool" knew exactly what he meant.

No doubt, but we're not talking about what he meant.  We're
talking about what words mean.

> Hang on.  You're saying that different people associate different meanings
> to the same word, and you're saying that meaning changes quite often, yet
> you say it is objective?

Obviously.  Objectivity implies neither changelessness nor
universality.

> >The weather is objective, but it changes from hour to hour, and
> >from location to location.
>
> The weather is real, words do not exist and therefore can never be objective.

Words don't even exist?  Then what are these things you're
reading?

> >Again, the simple proof of this is that people sometimes fail to
> >say what they mean.
>
> The only thing that proves is that people make mistakes.

They make a kind of mistake that would be impossible if your
claim, that words mean whatever speakers intend them to mean,
were true.

> >If words meant only what people intend to
> >mean by them, this would be logically impossible.  If what you
> >want is to get paid, but instead you say "I want to get laid,"
> >the word "laid" does not suddenly mean "paid."  It continues to
> >mean what it meant before (one of its meanings).  You simply said
> >something other than what you meant.
>
> If the same person came to me week after week asking to get laid, I'd work
> out after week one that he wanted money and not sex.

That's right.  You'd figure out what he meant.  And you'd have to
figure it out because it's not what he said.

> I have a Thai friend who
> frequently uses the wrongs words (on purpose), but I know exactly what she
> means.

If your view were true, there would be no such thing as "wrong
words."

> My step-father asks me if I've got my eyes in - what he wants to
> know is if I am wearing my contact lenses.

This only shows that communication doesn't always depend on
saying just what we mean.  That's true but it doesn't show that
the meanings of words have suddenly changed.

Todd Moody
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