There is no such thing as "just semantics"!

Language is flawed as a communication medium. I propose that Brains are pattern recognising and model the world based on experience. One of those patterns recognises that their are many similarities between the way each human experiences the world. If I draw a circle and see a circle then I assume that you see the same thing.

However to extend this assumption to every experience is flawed. Not everybody has the same type of eyeball or ability to see the same way as evidenced by colour blindness.

Since every body experiences the world differently, can there ever truly be an exact semantic match?

The second proposal is that we come to a statistical understanding of language and in its current form exact or precise communication is not possible. The latter statement would be a discussion for a new thread.
 
I suppose you are also aware that it very important to the meaning of the word you are pronouncing in Chinese to get rising tone the falling tone flat tone and falling/rising correct. (I recently started learning some chinese)
There are quite a few tonal languages, including more in the Asian language families, some in the language families in Africa and North and South America, as well as others. Chinese is by no means the only language in which tone is phonemic. I have often suggested that tonal languages require their speakers to develop more precise vocabularies for expressing their feelings, since tone is a major indicator of feeling in non-tonal languages.
Like I said elsewhere, I do not have much experience with dyslexics, and you yourself as a dyslexic are not a suitable source of information about dyslexia (because of the personal bias).
Would that mean that you are also not a suitable source because you are not dyslexic? Bias works both ways.
Namely, these people sometimes develop a low self-esteem and a defensive attitude to communication altogether. Some learn to believe that they are "different" than others; sometimes, they believe "there is something wrong with them" for being dyslexic. I have personally known a few dyslexics who believed that. I think it was this belief about them being "different" and "something wrong with them" that made communication difficult for them, not their dyslexia.
A while ago I read an article saying that dyslexics make very good managers because delegation is second-nature to them. "Here, please read this 100-page document and give me a summary. Then I'll want you to write our company's response."
Pineal argued that words in themselves don't have meaning (which is just not true) . . . .
Perhaps what he means is that a collection of sounds is not imparted with meaning by nature, but assigned meaning by a community of speakers, and a different meaning by other communities with language structures that allow the same collection of sounds to be a word. E.g, gift in German means "poison."
'Wonderland' seems a good metaphor for the world of words, IMO.
Not surprising, since Lewis Carroll loved word play.
The Lion kills the deer, Good for the Lion as it gets to eat bad for the deer as it dies. Therefore I interpret Good as 'for survival' and bad as opposite of 'for survival'.
Survival is Step One on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Step Two is security.
The other side of Good is increasing or decreasing emotional happiness. However happiness is an attitude choice if Viktor Frankl is correct.
And Step Three is love, Step Four is esteem, and Step Five is self-actualization (you can tell that not many of us have gotten that far because it's not well defined or understood;)). All of these things are "good" for humans. Most lower animals are limited to Steps One and Two, although many social species of mammals and birds appear to also experience love.
Faith to me means immutable belief in a deity.
That is much too narrow a definition, especially in a place of science and scholarship. "Faith" is confidence or trust in the existence, ability, loyalty, reliability, etc., of a person or thing. Confidence in the existence of a deity is only one small example of "faith."
Another thing that disturbs me about the original sentiment is the way the rules of good writing ask us to use a different word so as get variety into the what is being said.
That's just one example of the difference between (formal) writing and speech. They are two different ways of using a language and they do not follow exactly the same rules.
One can use homo sapiens instead of human any time of the day.
Not really. H. sapiens is narrowly defined as "modern humans." Neanderthals, Denisovans, Floresiensis, and other species more-or-less contempory with ours and descended from the same ancestral species are often called "human." In fact one of the sources in Dictionary.com includes all members of genus Homo, including clearly ancestral ones such as H. erectus or H. habilis.
 
Do you really see no difference betwen the two?

For one, "pants" is American English, and "trousers" is British English.
Incorrect.

Both words are standard American. Although "trousers" may be less commom
I would be willing to bet its recognition level is over 95% of the US population
which speaks English .
 
Incorrect.

Both words are standard American. Although "trousers" may be less commom
I would be willing to bet its recognition level is over 95% of the US population
which speaks English .

If you are an American, begin using the word "trousers" instead of "pants" and see what responses you get. If you're British, use "pants" instead of "trousers."
 
The meaning, in all three cases is clear, and it's clearly the same - Your pet dog came on to my private property, paused to evacuate its bowels of metabolic and digestive byproducts, and then vacated my premisis.


"vacating your premises" is a wholly unwarranted extrapolation. the examples given indicate no such thing

in actuality the dog's last known whereabouts was on your property as evinced by your assertion. it has not been seen since and we suspect foul play

the dog never did leave your property, did it now, trippy?

dog meat is tasty

aha!

garcon!
roll out the guillotine!
 
If you are an American, begin using the word "trousers" instead of "pants" and see what responses you get. If you're British, use "pants" instead of "trousers."

bad example but going with the flow....
a raised eyebrow, a chuckle. either party will then, by way of an proffered explanation or foreknowledge will derive meaning and chalk the difference in terminology down to a matter of semantics

signal, i would imagine it really depends on what we are considering as examples. in some cases i can imagine it is in actuality, just a matter of semantics. in others, not so

a decent rule of thumb would be...

Words have definitions. Sentences have "meaning".

..that.
 
"vacating your premises" is a wholly unwarranted extrapolation. the examples given indicate no such thing

in actuality the dog's last known whereabouts was on your property as evinced by your assertion. it has not been seen since and we suspect foul play

the dog never did leave your property, did it now, trippy?



aha!

garcon!
roll out the guillotine!

/Hides the BBQ and the basting.

No, I assure you, the dog has definitely left the premises (even if it was through the sewerage reticulation).
 
If you are an American, begin using the word "trousers" instead of "pants" and see what responses you get. If you're British, use "pants" instead of "trousers."

Over here, they are used interchangebly.
 
If you are an American, begin using the word "trousers" instead of "pants" and see what responses you get. If you're British, use "pants" instead of "trousers."

That you get strange responses because the word is uncommon in no way changes the meaning of the word. The word "trousers" still is understood to mean "pants". (Plus, I've heard "trousers" used in the U.S, albeit less commonly. In fact, I've heard just "trouser" in the form of "trouser snake." Americans seem to know the word well enough to use it in that term.)

Even if we imagine that one term is British and another American, Brits and Americans can and do speak to one another, and in that context I am reasonably certain neither would be confused by hearing the term of the other.

That words are used in different contexts and can seem out of place when used outside a given context doesn't in any way change their meaning. An "analgesic" is a pain-killer. Outside of a hospital, you might not hear the word as often as the term "pain-killer" but that they are mean the same thing is not altered by that fact.

If a doctor used the term "analgesic" with a patient, the patient might not recognize that term, and confusion could result. Once the definition is explained to the patient, though ("it means 'pain-killer'"), any confusion would be cleared up.
 
If you are an American, begin using the word "trousers" instead of "pants" and see what responses you get. If you're British, use "pants" instead of "trousers."
I have heard and used the word "trousers" in the USA enough
to know that it does not raise any eyebrows.
 
I thing about trousers-pants, though, "trousers" always refers
to a garment which covers the legs entirely, down to the the
top of the foot. Therefore you could call short pants "pants",
but you could not call them "trousers". The breeches worn ~1776
were not "trousers" either.
 
I thing about trousers-pants, though, "trousers" always refers
to a garment which covers the legs entirely, down to the the
top of the foot. Therefore you could call short pants "pants",
but you could not call them "trousers". The breeches worn ~1776
were not "trousers" either.

And there are sweat pants, hot pants and smartypants,
but there aren't sweat trousers, hot trousers and smartytrousers
 
bad example but going with the flow....
a raised eyebrow, a chuckle. either party will then, by way of an proffered explanation or foreknowledge will derive meaning and chalk the difference in terminology down to a matter of semantics

signal, i would imagine it really depends on what we are considering as examples. in some cases i can imagine it is in actuality, just a matter of semantics. in others, not so

Da capo:

What exactly does "it's just semantics" mean?

When people comment on something, saying "it's just semantics" - what do they mean?

I never use that phrase (other than in asking about it), and do not imagine ever using it.

What prompted this thread was another recent thread asking about the difference between some words.
 
When people comment on something, saying "it's just semantics" - what do they mean?[/URl]


i believe they are indicating that any additional presumptions are irrelevant to the point being made. they are asking you to ignore your derived meaning of the contentious terminology and instead conform to their take. ascertaining the validity of that demand is however, an entirely different matter

wiki waxes....
The word "semantics" itself denotes a range of ideas, from the popular to the highly technical. It is often used in ordinary language to denote a problem of understanding that comes down to word selection or connotation.​
.. and we can see the devil is in the details. at most the choice of either "pants" or "trousers" appear to be fairly uncontroversial. the meaning is easily derived. inferences might consist of adducing a cultural/geographic point of origination to the speaker, the utility of which seems rather negligible and extraneous to whatever is being affirmed

consider then a politician choosing "chink" over "asian-american". defending the usage as "just a matter of semantics" will never fly as there are then, additional and probably meaningful inferences one can deduce from that.

so it depends, signal dear :)

/bows out
 
Obviously, there is a difference in which two or more words we compare, and "pants" and "trousers" are not particularly controversial, but it is not true that they are interchangeable. One cannot say "smarty-trousers" instead of "smarty-pants."

On principle, I argue that language is rational, and that as such, there is no true redundancy or absolute interchangeability in it or its use.


so it depends, signal dear :)

/bows out

No, stay and fight!
Where's the rigor in "it depends"?!
 
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