The narrowing of vocabulary

[Wilson Gray]

Hmm. Then I was (un?)luckier than you were, Jon. I was totally
blank-slate WRT the concept that "rectangle," "square," "oblong,"
"triangle," etc. had mathematical definitions. Once I had been given
the definitions, I had no reason not to internalize them. It was as
when I was told - or read - that a mule is, by definition, the
offspring of a male ass and a female horse: No shit? No joke? For
true? For real? Don' be jivin' my ass! Cool. I can dig it.

Currently, I, too, am fully aware that the former set, _rectangle_ (
_square_ or [logically, _or_ = _*and*/or_, remember?] _oblong_), is
now, except for random mathematicians and number-theoreticians, the
set _rectangle_, a synonym of the obsolescent _oblong_, and the set,
_square_, the whole being a simplification like unto that of
Simplified English, in which the complex is rendered merely compound.
IAC, that's what Mario Pei said about it.

(I'd like to give a shout-out to Robert "Bob" Wall, arguably the
greatest author in the history of Mathematical Logic 101, for making
clear the *logical* definition of _or_, as opposed to the
ordinary-language definition of _or_, which latter, of course,
excludes _and_.)

-Wilson

On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 7:04 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: The narrowing of vocabulary
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Come to think of it, I too learned in school that a square was a kind of
> rectangle.
>
> The knowledge was so far removed from my normal understanding that I forgot
> it almost immediately.
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 3:58 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: The narrowing of vocabulary
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> On Sat, Jun 26, 2010 at 7:57 AM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>>
>> > No and yes.
>>
>>
>> Sigh! Ain't *that* a bitch?
>>
>> I hate it when *my* knowledge is rendered empty of content by other
>> people's ignorance. (FYI, "other people's ignorance" is based upon the
>> BE phrase, "other people's children" - or "OPC" - used to down  others
>> with whose actions one is not in agreement. Gnome sane?)
>>
>> Yeah, yeah. I know. Beowulf, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and others
>> better-known than I no doubt had that same feeling, WRT to the
>> language-change going on around them in their respective days. But I
>> learned that a square and an oblong were varieties of rectangle in the
>> first grade.
>>
>> As Dave Chappelle would put it:
>>
>> "In the FIRST GRADE, niggaz! IN THE FIRST GRADE!!!"
>>
>> Our teacher gave us each cardboard cut-outs and then rapped to us what
>> we needed to know.
>>
>> And now that knowledge is worthless. :-(
>>
>> -Wilson
>> =96=96=96
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"=96=96a strange complaint t=
> o
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> =96Mark Twain
>> [Mark, baby, you stone *saying* a taste!]
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --=20
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org