rectangle vs. square

[Robin Hamilton]

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: rectangle vs. square
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> the technical uses don't have some sort of priority outside of context.
> in fact, they're restricted to very special social contexts.

Aren't *all meanings constrained and defined by their context -- social,
temporal, geographic, and otherwise?  Might it be a case of, "My social
context is bigger than your social context"?

> and the technical uses are wrenchings of the ordinary-language uses for
> special purposes.  compare other mathematical specializations of
> ordinary-language terms.

I wonder if we aren't into a chicken-and-egg situation here? -- certainly
the OED seems to imply that, at least in the case of "rectangle", the term
first arose in a specialised mathematical context.

Digges doesn't seem to be easily available online (though it will presumably
be in EEBO, if anyone has access to that).

Robin

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