LL-L 'Language and genetics' 2006.10.01 (02) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 01 October 2006 * Volume 02
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From: Sandy Fleming [sandy at scotstext.org]
Subject: LL-L 'Language and genetics' 2006.09.30 (04) [E]

>From: 'MWI' [wintzermichel at wanadoo.fr]
>Subject: LL-L 'Language and genetics' 2006.09.30 (01 [E]
>
>Hi LLs,
>Sandy wrote:
>
>>Take blood, for example. Me and my (full) brother are different blood
>>types. If I had an accident, most people all over the world could give
>>me blood, but my brother couldn't. Talking about "blood" to separate
>>people into groups is irrelevant. It immediately shows your argument to
>>be based on obsolete notions of brotherhood. Obviously when you need
>>blood in a hospital the classification of blood is very important, but
>>it's not the same thing as the classification of people.
>>
>No it isn't. Because "blood" has several meanings.
>The ones relevant here are:
>1. Genetic make-up
>2. Red body fluid.
>For me the argument ends already there.
>Tschüß, Mike Wintzer
>
I don't think you can say that "blood" means "genetic make-up". It was
used in the "us and them" sense long before genetics was used as a term
or understood in any scientific (eg Mendelian) sense.

The use of blood the sense of "English/Scottish/whatever blood" is like
the use of "heart" in poetry and valentines. There was a time when the
heart was thought to be the organ we thought with and felt emotions
with, but progress in our understanding of the world has led to this use
of the word being reduced (or elevated) to metaphor. To use the term
"blood" in this sense in a discussion about genetics would be like using
"heart" to mean "brain" in a discussion about psychology.

Sandy Fleming
http://scotstext.org/

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