Off My Chest
RULES:
I am looking for mods!
1. The "good" part of our community means we are pro-empathy and anti-harassment. However, we don't intend to make this a "safe space" where everyone has to be a saint. Sh*t happens, and life is messy. That's why we get things off our chests.
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3. Frustrated, venting, or angry posts are still welcome.
4. Posts and comments that bait, threaten, or incite harassment are not allowed.
5. If anyone offers mental, medical, or professional advice here, please remember to take it with a grain of salt. Seek out real professionals if needed.
6. Please put NSFW behind NSFW tags.
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Is that why the dictionary defines every word with "it depends", "hard to say", and "I don't know, man. You figure it out!"?
Derisive sarcasm isn't useful here.
Definitions are still a useful tool and help clarify the semantic field. Dictionaries are a project that imply that meaning is dependent and contextual. Dictionaries attempt to capture it, for now. A word's meaning depends upon its part of speech and can mean different things when present in different parts of speech i.e., row. Homonyms, of which contranyms like anxious and cleave are a subset of, can even exist in the same part of speech. "A bat flew past me" is a meaningful statement, but we have deferred it's meaning until context reveals what type of bat. It could literally be either.
Etymologies can help understand how this happens. Or their transformation can be lost. Languages change. The word "ephemera" has nothing to do with fevers. Original meaning is not the supreme meaning. Connection to the original does not confer primacy. "Cleave" means to "stay close to" and "split apart". When you look at how the same word from two different non-English sources enter English at two different times, you see how a contranym can emerge.
The meaning of a word is open to change from social circumstances. Just because it used to mean something like a one day fever doesn't mean it still means that nor does it mean that it's connection is either obvious, tracable, or necessary.
A fixed meaning has to be divorced from people and it's use. Language is a reflection of the people who use it. Meaning has several points of instability. Only context can fasten it. Context is the only way meaning is reveal despite our anxious anticipation for its stability. We are ahead of the meaning when we prematurely seek it's stability, clarity, and certainty. And when contranyms allow for double meaning, it can be an invitation to play. And is anything more human than that?
Oh. No, that wasn't sarcastic. That was completely earnest. But, of course, I'm defining "earnest" in this case to be a synonym of sarcastic. I assume you got that from context.
You can of course attempt to define it any way you want. But if society, through your interactions in aggregate rejects it, then it doesn't change language.
I get you're doing the whole, when language is relative if loses all meaning, but honestly, do you not get the point that language is a social phenomena? Does this make you feel good?
No I do not mind that language is relative, that it evolves, etc. I don't even mind when words used in different patterns of phrasing can mean the opposite. I mind when the exact same phrase can mean two diametrically opposed things because asinine common use had misunderstood the original intent of the word so badly that we all are stuck dealing with it. If the exact same phrase can mean two completely opposite things, then it means neither. It requires the rest of the context around it to define it, meaning it is a functionally useless statement.
If "in" means in and out, it means neither. If "some" means some and none, it means neither. If "anxious" means anxious and eager, it means neither. A perfectly useful word was turned into a meaningless one. It's bad semantics.
If context resolves the meaning, then I don't see how it's functionally useless. In one context, anxious means "worry" and in another context it means "eager". It continues to be useful because of context.
I'm really having trouble seeing the issue you're having given the light of how context resolves it. It functions within context. A word with multiple meanings resolves with context. "A bat flew by me" doesn't mean it's meaningless. It requires further context.
I don't know why you're applying normative standards to semantics. Linguistics is not a normative field. It's descriptive. This is the heart of the issue. Semantics are not definitions.