Re: CHAT: models and miniatures

bjm10 wrote>"true, literal sense of the word" very often translates as
"yabber yabber
>jabber rubbish nonsense uppity uppity uppity pinky-out"  The "true,
>literal sense" of any word is how it is used in the here and now by the
>general consensus of the population that is using it.  Humpty Dumpty is
>absurd.
>
This would seem to imply that technical (and often original) meanings of
words that're used in another sense by the general public aren't true. For
instance, _psychopath_ wouldn't "really" signify a person fulfilling a
fairly detailed list of psychological criteria, because most people use it
for pretty much any person perceived as mentally deviant. Similarly,
_impulse_ wouldn't "truly" be a concept in mechanics, and _dinosaurs_
wouldn't "truly" exclude pterosaurs (at least in my experience, most people
think they're dinosaurs).

IMHO, if there is a "true" meaning of a word it is whatever the
speaker/writer intends it to mean - quite independently from what meanings
various people associate with it.

                                                  Andreas

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