the miscast Net

[Thomas M. Paikeday]

in my earlier reply i forgot the most important point i wish to make,
namely, if  you specify the context, the purpose of the question could be
defeated, as if one were to ask: when you are surfing the net, what does
"net" mean to you?

t.m.p.
www.paikeday.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Arnold Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, August 23, 2003 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: the miscast Net


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: the miscast Net
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----
>
> tom paikeday asks:
>  >What comes to your mind first when you hear the word "net" in isolation?
>
> well, there's no such thing as "in isolation" or "out of context".
> you're asking the question on an internet newsgroup, so i'm inclined
> to interpret "net" as the internet.  similarly, if i hear someone
> use the word on the street or in a restaurant near my house; i live
> in palo alto, after all, and a large percentage of the people i
> run across are computer folk of one kind or another (some recognizable
> as t-shirt techies, others as silicon valley preppies, in blue dress
> shirts, no tie, and chinos).
>
> in a sporting goods store, or with non-tech friends i know to be
> sports fans, i'd think of basketball nets or volleyball nets.
>
> a lot would depend on the informant's interests in life.  for some,
> it would be a fishing net, for some the bottom line in accounting,
> for some a fabric, for some mosquito netting.
>
> you could do a survey, but what you'd be tapping isn't knowledge
> about language but rather the distribution of certain interests or
> concerns in the population.  plus whatever biases are introduced by
> the circumstances in which you ask the question, the informant's
> knowledge (or guess) about what sort of person you are, what's going
> on in the world (two months ago, "worm" would have called up annelids
> for me, but right now the first thing that comes to mind is the
> computer use of the word), etc.
>
> i don't doubt that college students would be very likely to think of
> the internet first.  the internet is a very significant presence in
> their lives.  things would probably be different for inner-city kids.
> for the young men, at least, basketball is a very big thing in their
> lives.
>
> actually, it would be hard to think of a question that's more
> exquisitely context-bound than "what do you think of when you hear
> the word W?"
>
> arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)
>