Re: The pitfall of Chinese/Mandarin

On 9 Dec, Andreas Johansson wrote:

 (in answer to Cheng Zhong Su):

<snip>

>the VAST majority of
> language use is in non-scientific everyday situations where complete
clarity
> SIMPLY ISN'T AN OBJECTIVE.
>
    As a matter of fact, the extremely accurate passing of information
(insofar as that is possible at all) is sometimes not only not an objective,
sometimes  it is the _last_ thing one wants to use language for!
A big example is, of course, "diplomacy ". But apart from the
obvious use of the word (= international diplomacy), think about
the diplomacy within a nation (= politics) or even the slippery language
used to grease the relations between neighbors, friends, and family
members. And taken to extreme, not-quite-so-accurate transfer of
information is even used _within_ a person, as when you convince
yourself of something, against all objective facts (this conviction,
however being, for some reason, vitally important in order to protect
one's ego!  Try to impart, with surgically accurate use of lang,
empirically-based facts to a fanatic who is convinced otherwise!
Good luck! :-P )
    Also, just off hand and what comes to mind: without "sloppy" use of
lang, there would be very little creativity, especially that inspired by
other people. As in:  when someone tries to tell you something, and
you only "half hear" them, but that is enough to send your thoughts
racing down new avenues towards new ideas. That's one reason
why, even scientists, have conventions! Not only to receive, accurately,
the info being imparted there, but also to be inspired by it!
    With only absolute clarity allowed, one would also be deprived of
entertainment. Along with the various types of joking wordplay,
(mentioned previously by people on the list), there would be no
crossword-puzzles of the very irritating, but addictive, type where the
clues are not so much definitions as clues containing puns and all sorts
of other verbal misdirections! :-)
    As I recall one of my linguistics profs telling us (lo, these many
years ago --- but, IMHO, still true): language has a certain degree of
"play" in it (in both senses of the word!).
And that is because people, who use language,
themselves are not well-defined, clearly-bounded, entities!
(And some of us, perhaps, are less clearly bounded than others! ;-)    )
And the wonder is that so much info seems to get clearly imparted
between us on one hand, and that we seem to
produce so much wonderful verbally-mediated creativity on the other!

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.

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