"If a tree falls ..."

[Mark A. Mandel]

At some point Duane Campbell wrote:
>>>>>
My point, nonetheless, remains. Many such "conundrums" are simply language
problems. And as it happens, the post came through shortly after my wife had
come to me with a question about SUVs. She had been involved in a battle at
lunch about just which models were SUVs and which were not. She asked me
exactly what an SUV was. I told her that it was what the manufacturer said
it was at the moment, that the issue was in flux, that words had meaning
only as others understood the same meaning and it had not settled out yet.
<<<<<

Here in Philadelphia the University City district office has put up a
billboard to promote bikes over motor vehicles. It shows a photo of two
people biking down the street, with arrows pointing to their bicycles from a
big label "SUV".

-- Mark A. Mandel
   Linguistic Data Consortium, University of Pennsylvania