Linguistics

[pljames]

I am a relavitist (everything in one form or other is related even words and language). I have discovered that when I am writing thoughts as words come into my mind. It would seem to me that as I am writing, the preceeding words are producing words that relate to the sentence I am writing. Thoughts please? pljames

[Trajicomic]

Relative to what?

[pljames]

Relative to whatever the subject is? All disciplines are relative to each other. pljames

Relative to what?

[Flannel Jesus]

I am a relavitist (everything in one form or other is related even words and language).

that's not what it means to be a relativist...

also, i have just the essay for you:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/ic/the_virtue_of_narrowness/

Surely the wisest of all human beings are the New Age gurus who say "Everything is connected to everything else." If you ever say this aloud, you should pause, so that everyone can absorb the sheer shock of this Deep Wisdom.

There is a trivial mapping between a graph and its complement. A fully connected graph, with an edge between every two vertices, conveys the same amount of information as a graph with no edges at all. The important graphs are the ones where some things are not connected to some other things.

When the unenlightened ones try to be profound, they draw endless verbal comparisons between this topic, and that topic, which is like this, which is like that; until their graph is fully connected and also totally useless. The remedy is specific knowledge and in-depth study. When you understand things in detail, you can see how they are not alike, and start enthusiastically subtracting edges off your graph.

[innolan]

EVERY WORD IS RELATIVE for example Matt. 15:21 clearly speaks of a woman from Canaan, whom
Jesus called ‘a dog’: being not offended, she was blessed and the demons removed from her child.
And isn’t that what we want? By any means necessary?
Keep in mind that dogs don't raise their young. they learn by enviroment to depend on that enviroment
woman with child called a dog because she didn't raise her child.I'm sure that just like today some young mothers were too consumed with their own life than that of their child... so baby breaks bad.
But how bad? that mom seek the help of a man she believed to be able to help her ,put up with the offenses and her faith made it so. but back to relative word female +dog = bitch .take a female couple her up with a dog man who won't take care of his kids,and or abusive and,or lazy and or never learned how to take care of himself. she will become a bitch in the way man now use the word because she has been scorned.but the spirit of the word "being intent to cheat humanity"is the spirit of the D.O.G.(down on God)

[pljames]

Relative to what?

2x2=4 do they relate? Words have synonyms. Do they also relate. Tree ground, air cloud baby family. pljames

[pljames]

Only with words can we communicate with others (except sign language). Who knows what's in the other persons mind? History has proven humanity has a flaw. If we have been here seven million or seven thousand years why haven't we overcome our primitive instincts (murder rape pillage etc)? We humans are not perfect especially in language. Can a English major or any other, write the perfect letter (without any flaws)? Most linguists cannot even agree with each others writing ( a flaw they refuse to acknowledge perhaps )? Why cannot linguists overlook these minor flaws and attempt to guide these poor souls into understanding the linguists thought? I am a English private and dam proud of it. "A jack of all trades and the master of none".
Feedback please. pljames

[Calrid]

EVERY WORD IS RELATIVE for example Matt. 15:21 clearly speaks of a woman from Canaan, whom
Jesus called ‘a dog’: being not offended, she was blessed and the demons removed from her child.
And isn’t that what we want? By any means necessary?
Keep in mind that dogs don't raise their young. they learn by enviroment to depend on that enviroment
woman with child called a dog because she didn't raise her child.I'm sure that just like today some young mothers were too consumed with their own life than that of their child... so baby breaks bad.
But how bad? that mom seek the help of a man she believed to be able to help her ,put up with the offenses and her faith made it so. but back to relative word female +dog = bitch .take a female couple her up with a dog man who won't take care of his kids,and or abusive and,or lazy and or never learned how to take care of himself. she will become a bitch in the way man now use the word because she has been scorned.but the spirit of the word "being intent to cheat humanity"is the spirit of the D.O.G.(down on God)

Don't get me wrong I am not anti Christian, in fact there are a lot of things about Christianity that are well worth the time to morally understand. But what does any of what you said have to do with the OP?

And by the way dogs raise their puppies well, feed and protect them and train them and will even die for them; the urge to protect their young is one of the only times a bitch will die for a cause and aggressively so. Amongst the pack in the wild they are protected and fed even by non relations. Dogs if anything are a great example of how nature will protect the young, unlike wolves they rarely if ever kill competing offspring. If a child was subject to a bitch it would of been well brought up. The Bible kind of got that wrong, if women were bad it is because women and indeed men don't have the same instincts as dogs.

[innolan]

Calrid wrote
And by the way dogs raise their puppies well, feed and protect them and train them and will even die for them; the urge to protect their young is one of the only times a bitch will die for a cause and aggressively so. Amongst the pack in the wild they are protected and fed even by non relations. Dogs if anything are a great example of how nature will protect the young, unlike wolves they rarely if ever kill competing offspring. If a child was subject to a bitch it would of been well brought up. The Bible kind of got that wrong, if women were bad it is because women and indeed men don't have the same instincts as dogs.

good insight. I appreciate you comments.
innolan
prophetic poetic

[pljames]

I am understanding the word linguist a little better. Can the subject of the post be relative to the post and vice versa? If words have synonyms can the writer define one word without a synonym or synonyms? Since everyone has their personal belief of what they think the word means and what the writer wrote, why dissect the word or sentence? Where is the logic to that? I have the ability to write a sentence without understanding the syntax (nouns and verbs). If I make a error will I be killed? If I can (be understood) will I be praised and not judged?

Any language is not perfect not even the writer. we all do the best we can (and yes even the misspelled words and such. Lighten up masters of linguistic perfection. You in the beginning never made a mistake? Recheck the word perfect. We are only human. Feed back please. pljames

[brevel_monkey]

I am a relavitist (everything in one form or other is related even words and language).

I think you would be better described as believing in semantic holism. Quine was really the man for this (although he's not very readable).

Since everyone has their personal belief of what they think the word means and what the writer wrote, why dissect the word or sentence? Where is the logic to that? I have the ability to write a sentence without understanding the syntax (nouns and verbs).

On the one hand, there are several practical applications to studying linguistics.

The major application is for teaching English as a foreign language. As a native speaker, you are indeed able to form sentences without thinking about how you are doing it. However, people who learn English as second language (like how you probably learned language at school), evidently lack this ability. Whether second language learners actually need this meta-linguistic knowledge themselves is a matter of great contention; it is clear, though, that teachers of English as a foreign language are generally more effective if they know how the language they are teaching works.

Another practical application of linguistics is in the continuing efforts to teach computers how to understand spoken language or speak. Siri, the clever new voice recognition system on the iPhone, was written with help from many of the world's top linguists.

However, people might also say that studying linguistics has value in itself. After all, we use language all the time; it's inevitable that people will want to know how language works. Why, for example, does "I have any apples" sound wrong, but "there are any number of reasons"... sound o.k? In this respect, linguistics is just like most of philosophy: people are interested in knowing why something is the case.

Any language is not perfect not even the writer

The aim of linguistics is not 'linguistic perfection', indeed, no such thing exists anyway. The aim of linguistics, put simply, is to formulate a description of how language works.