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Saben wrote:
>I used to think stereotypes were a bad thing. I now think they are often accurate. Prejudice is the thing to be wary of, not stereotypes.<
Thank goodness there is someone else who does not dismiss stereotypes. After all, how did they arise in the first place? And prejudice is not the answer; that came later.
Hugs
N
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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We humans have a funny need to categorise, label and group things. We cognitively assign attributes to members of particular groups based on need. It's highly related to language.
This can be seen in colour. The most "base colours" (not shades- maroon, scarlet and crimson are shades of red, but pink, purple and orange are distinct "base colours" in English) any language in the world has is 13-14. Some languages have as few as two colour words. But all languages (bar Russian and grue/ yellow) follow the exact same progression.
A language with 2 colours will always have black and white.
A language with 3 colours will always have black, white and red.
A language with 4 colours has black, white, red and either yellow, or grue (turquoise).
A language with 5 colours has black, white, red, yellow and grue.
And so on.
Humans have to stereotype. It's not assigning prototypical qualities that causes problems so much as allowing these qualities to cause us to prejudge.
We might think men are physically stronger than women, but there sure are some women physically stronger than me. I still think the generalisation is valid, accurate and helpful. Just as long as I don't pick a supposedly stronger man for a physical task over a woman when the woman is actually better suited for it!
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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I think you are stating as a fact some things which are opinions. Please provide citations for these.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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dunfyn
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Getting started |
Registered: November 2005
Messages: 16
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Saben, in that color example of yours what sets the Russian language apart? I am just curious, because the Russian isn't stand alone language, like say the Basque, and supposedly shares the roots with the other Indo-European languages, which hypothetically branched off from the same proto-language a few thousand years ago. Nevertheless, these languages display noticeable similarities. So I wonder what makes the Russian so different in this particular case.
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Dear Saben,
How right you are!
Human beings use language to communicate. Although it was clever to define us as featherless bipeds the true distinction between humans and other life is that humans use language.
The essence of language is that words carry meanings. A concept is the idea carried by a word. When a three year old sees a place in tree roots of a suitable shape and sits down comfortably, saying "chair" that is the most amazing thing and it is built into people. We can't communicate much meaning without the use of words, but every word is a sort of generalisation or if you like a stereotype.
Stereotypes are typical models of things just as 'chair' typifies a chair but no amount of description of the possible forms of chair could ever enable everyone to see what the three year old saw when she used a root to sit on. [Have you ever sat on a root, Saben?] I couldn't resist that. Punning and double entendres are at the heart of a lot of jokes. I mean the space between the roots was too small for most people to sit there.
Karl Popper invented the 'three worlds' view of things. World one is the real world and everything in it. World two is the private world for each of us that contains everything that we sense and feel and think. World three is the shared products of the human mind. It contains all established human knowledge as well as all lies and all mistakes; but it is world three that enables the human race to progress because once something is shared between people it can be subjected to test and scrutiny and that process distinguishes between what is true and what is not (including all the other states between true and false).
Well, have I left everyone behind? I enjoyed that even if nobody has the least idea what I'm on about. I did say somewhere that I'm really a philosopher, didn't I. I do think that the things I have outlined above are really important and that without these ideas it is very difficult to achieve a view of the world without all sorts of contradictions and problems.
Love
Anthony
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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It's true that Russian isn't a language isolate, and it may share this feature with other close family languages. But in Russian light blue and dark blue are different colours. To a Russian speaker, you can't group light blue and dark blue into the same category "blue". It actually has 14 basic color terms rather than English's 13.
You can find more about the basic color terms here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_Color_Terms:_Their_Universality_and_Evolution or in the book itself.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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It's an opinion that men (on average) have more muscle mass and hence have a greater lifting, throwing and running capacity than women?
I thought that was pretty well a scientifically established fact. Testosterone, which men have in greater quantities, aids muscle development. Physical strength (lifting, throwing, running capacity) is based largely on muscle/ weight ratios.
So provided that's not in question and given I provided citations re: color theory that's evidence that humans like to group things and that stereotypes (men are stronger) are sometimes accurate. They were the two main points of my previous post.
I did also say: "Humans have to stereotype. It's not assigning prototypical qualities that causes problems so much as allowing these qualities to cause us to prejudge."
If you don't think humans have a need (compulsion) to define things and provide "typical attributes" then explain the existence of a dictionary.
The only way we differentiate a teacup from a mug is by looking at what attributes a stereotypical teacup and a stereotypical mug possess and comparing and contrasting the two lists against an object in the real world and making a judgement call as to which label is closer to reality.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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I followed it and found it interesting.
I am a linguistic major with a particular interest in Semantics so I know all about meaning. Each person has their own "perfect chair" in their own mind. That perfect chair will have certain qualities and the closer an object is to possessing all those qualities the more likely it is to be considered a chair.
My perfect chair looks something like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Rocking_chair.jpg but with 4 legs instead of a rocker, and a higher seat. But a recliner is still a type of chair. A stool is less of a chair. A bench is a chair, but less of one than a stool or "real chair". Of course, I doubt a chair exists in the world that corresponds exactly to my "perfect chair"- my definition of chair has come to exist based on a feature list I've internally compiled based on exposure to countless numbers of chairs. It's open to adjustments but in general I'm not going to start calling a cat a chair (interesting mental image there).
With people it gets harder, because if I think someone possesses the attributes of a "queer" and call them a "queer" but they don't see themselves possessing "queer" attributes, then there's been a definite miscommunication which could be problematic. I like to let people label themselves as much as possible, but even so there's assumptions tied up in those labels. If someone calls themselves a Republican it means something totally different to if they call themselves a Democrat, Libertarian or Green. Some of the assumptions may not be pleasant at all.
I think my point is, that stereotypes are a useful and necessary part of life. If we try to deny our tendency to label we breed a culture of political correctness where real problems are unable to be dealt with because we don't want to be seen as stereotyping. Individuals deserve individual treatment and we have a responsibility to not judge people on the basis of stereotypical qualities, everyone deserves a fair shot. Not hiring someone because "all blacks are criminals" is wrong, even if there is a larger percentage of the black community than the white community involved in certain types of crime. Stereotypes shouldn't be a way to put someone down or exclude someone. People are individuals and even if they do trend towards common similarities this doesn't mean any of those behaviours are innately wrong, unless they are unethical and violate the law or a social contract and convention.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13751
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What you have cited here is not fact, but a book with opinions in it. The Wikipedia article describes the book. It does not document research on the opinions expressed therein.
While the opinions may have adherents I do not (yet) see sufficient evidence that they are any more than the opinions of one paper that is documented in the book.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Dear Saben,
I liked reading your comments about 'chair' but I think there is a problem with the platonic ideal. The similarity between your ideal chair and the tree roots would not have enabled you to see that the root WAS a chair (for a three year old). Not that it's important except if we are going to take it further and develop a whole philosophy.
One problem with the ideal is that your picture of a chair is in your head and can never be in someone elses head - but words are to think and communicate and they only communicate when the sender and receiver of the message both have a very similar concept (idea carried by the word). I don't call myself queer because I associate other behaviour as well as homosexuality with the word (eg campness).
And I think it would be improper to have that discussion in A Place of Safety. Would you like to have it by email? I think I've left my address open for all here to see.
Love,
Anthony
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Yes, Saben, colours are interesting in other languages too. I've heard that eskimos have many words for white (or snow white) and I had problems with the 'wine-dark' sea in the Virgil and Homer. And have you thought of the problems of number (apart from the 'one, two, many' joke)?
Love,
Anthony
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dunfyn
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Getting started |
Registered: November 2005
Messages: 16
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I have to agree with Tim. Wikipedia article is about the book not the hypothesis itself. I am not an expert in linguistics, but it seems to me that quick test of twenty o so languages, could hardly be considered as a conclusive proof.
In regard of stereotypes and human need to categorize things, I have similar opinion. Here color example seems fitting. If one isn't interested in something, black and white level would be sufficient, otherwise basic colors or shades would be used. Maybe, the same way sexual orientation categories appear to be black and white to many people, while directly affected person would expand the number of categories to outline what's important to them.
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Deeej wrote:
> It's an urban legend that they (Eskimos) refer to it (snow) by far more words than we do, or see much more to it when we just see "snow".<
If it is a legend, it is one that is perpetuated by the provincial museum of Manitoba in Winnepeg. A large board is displayed with more than the legendary fourteen words in the Eskimo language(s) for snow with approximate English equivalents.
Of course I have probably opened up another can of worms by not calling them Inuits or First National Citizens of Canada, although I am told that Eskimo is still the preferred term in Alaska. To be really poncy you can refer to them as Esquimeau(x).
Hugs
N
[Updated on: Sat, 05 January 2008 10:26]
I dream of boys with big bulges in their trousers,
Never of girls with big bulges in their blouses.
…and look forward to meeting you in Cóito.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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First off, the colours business.
I doubt whether this sheds much light on the concept of stereotypes as raised by Nigel, though it's obviously an instance of grouping, and stereotyping is also a form of grouping.
What DOES strike me as fascinating is the suggestion that all languages extend subdivisions in the same order. I hadn't heard of that theory until Saben raised it but, like some other posters, I'd like to know more about the research methodology. I'm not rejecting the theory - I think it's absolutely fascinating - but through an accident of fate (specifically, getting married) I know a fair bit about both academic and market research. Because the latter involves big bucks, there has been a great deal of research into polling integrity - how to ask questions in such a way as to avoid influencing the answers. Quite a bit of academic research, particularly in 'pure arts' subjects, is significantly less rigorous. I'd want to know how the researcher established what was, and what was not a 'basic colour'.
A couple of thoughts on that score. I'd speculate that, if uninfluenced by the questioner, many English-Speakers (or at least British English-Speakers) asked to list the basic colours (given only the proviso that this did not mean the primary colours) would say red, yellow, green and blue. If the questioner still looked expectant, they might add Indigo and Violet, thinking of the rainbow - but in everyday life the vast majority would think of both those colours as being shades of purple. Black and white would be afterthoughts, because in British culture neither are thought of as 'colours' - on the contrary, 'colours' are hues which are emphatically NOT black and white. Even grey occupies an ambivalent position; grey images can be described as 'lacking colour'. Finally, what about 'Turquoise', which seems to be included as a basic colour? The word 'Turquoise' (originally 'Turqueise') was originally an adjective meaning 'Turkish', especially in the usage 'Turquoise Stone', referring to the gemstone. The gemstone can range in colour from a vivid sky blue to a deep blue-green, and (again, at least in British English) it was usual until at least the mid-twentieth century to describe the shades of blue-green as 'Turquoise Blue', thus clearly relegating turquoise to the status of a shade of blue. Food for thought? Or not?
Incidentally, on the question if whether Russian is, in a sense, unique, it should be remembered that in its original heartland the language was surrounded on three sides - West, North and East - by languages of the Uralic family, which may or may not be part of the Indo-European family; the jury is out and shows little sign of returning on that point. But if Uralic (often called Finno-Ugric, and including, among others, the languages of Finland, Estonia and Siberia) IS part of the Indo-European family, it had split from the root well before Russian, and - of the universally-accepted Indo-European group - the Slavic group (which includes Russian) was one of the earliest groups to break away. So it isn't altogether surprising that Russian differs greatly from most Western European languages, and any conclusions about basic colours would need to be underpinned by research into the Uralic group, because there is no doubt that languages spoken in adjacent territories have a significant influence upon each orther's vocabulary.
Moving on to stereotypes, I think it's pretty clear that Nigel was thinking of human groupings, although it is of course possible to have a sterotypical situation or a sterotypical result - for example 'Newcastle United suffered another 1-0 defeat at the hands of (insert name of football club; amateur village clubs are admissible).
[Digression Warning!!!! This paragraph has nothing much to do with the rest of the post, but that won't discourage me from writing it!] 'Stereo-' is actually derived from the Ancient Greek word for 'solid', and in English usage originally meant 'three-dimensional' - as in 'stereophonic' (which, in strictness, means sound coming from all directions, not just from two) and 'stereoscope', a device allowing a pair of two-dimensional images to be viewed in three dimensions. Originally, a stereotype was a printing plate which replicated an original set up from individual pieces of type. From that developed the concept that a stereotype was a replica, and then - for reasons which are, to say the least, unclear - it was widely adopted as a term to describe a human being conforming to a set a preconceived norms. That could cover anyone from an absent-minded professor to a screaming queen. All of which may be of some interest - or pehaps it isn't.
Getting back to the nitty-gritty, I'd suggest a simple justification for stereotypes which avoids any academic terminology. Anthony has already mentioned the characteristics of human communication. It's a bit like organising files on your computer; once you have too many to handle easily, you group them into folders. As they proliferate in your folders, you group them into sub-folders. And so it goes on. Stereotypes - in the human context - are no more, and no less than sub-folders of humanity, relieving us of the responsibility to assess every person we see from first principles. There's nothing whatsoever wrong with that; the problems arise when the less perceptive amongst us forget that stereotyping is simply initial screening. It gives us a 'handle' on the individual, from which we can develop our opinion in the light of experience, but in no way does it irrevocably define that individual.
To my mind, the suggestion that stereotyping people is intrinsically wrong makes about as much sense as suggesting that the shape of the leaves of the shrub 'Atropa Belladonna' (Deadly Nightshade) should be ignored in determining whether the berries are safe to eat. Humans intuitively build upon experience, but that doesn't imply that they have closed minds.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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dunfyn
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Getting started |
Registered: November 2005
Messages: 16
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The reason I asked how Russian language was different was the statement "all languages (bar Russian...) follow the same pattern..." or something like that, which appeared a little bit odd. After Saben's explanation I realized that he mentioned Russian language simply as an exception he knew of.
Splitting blue into two different colors could have been influence of Finno-Ugric surroundings, but then Finno-Ugric languages wouldn't have fit into the described pattern also. Generally I thought along the lines, that terms for basic colors already existed in proto-language(s) long before Russian or English came to existence, so most of the terms in modern languages would be derivatives from earlier forms. And I don't know with what level of accuracy these older forms and sequence of their appearance could be restored.
Cossie, the article in Wikipedia (linked in Saben's post) has an external link to the opponent's paper. The author sheds some light on methodology and history of basic color research.
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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Yes, I did leap in a bit precipitately - my only defence is that it was an ungodly hour of the morning and I was in search of something to divert my thoughts.
Whilst I find the whole thing interesting, my real fascination is, as ever, with words and language. My immediate cynicism was triggered by the basic and indisputable fact that language is constantly changing, and I found (and find) it hard to reconcile that with the absolute definition of basic colours implied by the theory.
What criteria were used in determining what was a basic colour and what was merely a shade of a basic colour? In my previous post, I mentioned turquoise; according to the Oxford Dictionary the word is first recorded in the Late Middle English period (1400-ish) to name the gemstone, but isn't recorded as a colour description until the late sixteenth century, and for four centuries after that it was regarded as a shade of blue.
Even more interesting is pink. The word first appears in English as the name of a group of flowers (the carnations) in the late sixteenth century, and isn't recorded as a colour until the mid seventeenth century. The colour-name is derived from the typical colour of the flower. Until then, the colour in question was described as light red. I'm guessing here, but whilst I accept that almost all British-English speakers, presented with a card coloured lightish-pink, would identify the colour as pink, the 'success rate' would fall as the colour became darker. And, at the other end of the red scale, a large proportion of those presented with a dark red card would describe the colour as maroon. So what, exactly, makes pink a basic colour but maroon a mere shade of red?
It seems to me that as the theory purports to relate to language development, the only legitimate way to determine what is a basic colour and what is a mere shade is by properly controlled polling of a statistically significant group of native speakers of the language in question - and it appears that this was not done.
As regards Russian, I have to admit that my approach was pretty superficial. I have no expertise whatsoever in Finno-Urgic languages, but the possibility (which may be entire rubbish!) that I had in mind was this. Suppose that, in the Uralic family of languages, 'pure blue' was a pale colour, influenced by the paler Northern skies, and in Russian - an Indo-European language originating substantially further South - it was a darker colour, though still influenced by the sky. In such circumstances, cross-fertilisation could well result in both languages adopting different words for light blue and dark blue; after all, it's no stranger than English speakers calling light red 'pink'. It wouldn't mean that Russian speakers didn't see the relationship between dark blue and light blue, but simply that they employed two different words to describe the colours. And if that hasn't put you to sleep, nothing will!
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Okay, on Berlin and Kay's research. It is peer reviewed and cited in most textbooks I've read on Semantics (including my first year Linguistics textbook Introduction to Language [Fromkin, et al] and my Semantics textbook Understanding Semantics [Löbner]) reading those or the original book would be helpful if you are really interesting in learning more, or there's a couple more wikipedia articles that are somewhat relevant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_name
And to a lesser degree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-green_across_cultures
I was linking to wiki not to verify my statement but rather to cite the original research. The wiki article itself doesn't say much, but it's my understanding that most linguistics agree with the work of Berlin and Kay.
Onto the original study, there's a 3 page section in Understanding Semantics about it so I'm not going to type the entire thing, in summary, though:
-as colour is a continuous spectrum with no actual boundaries it was assumed that colour terms would be arbitrary across languages. Red blends into orange into yellow into green and so on, so why should a language pick "red" as a basic colour term over say maroon?
-Berlin and Kay studied 100 languages, about 20 languages of which had native speakers interviewed. For the remainder past studies, dictionaries, etc were used.
-The main criteria for a Basic Colour Term (BCT) were that:
* BCTs are not subordinates of any other colour term (olive is a shade of green, crimson of red, mauve of purple, etc)
* BCTs are simple words, not compounds or derivations (greenish, dark green, blue-green, etc)
* BCTs are not restrictive to a particular class of object (blond refers only to hair, you can't say that straw is blond)
* BCTs are psychologically salient and hence appear at the start of a list of colours
Tests were performed in which the informants were shown a grid with 329 colours- 9 were black, white and shades of grey; while the other 320 were arranged in a 8x40 grid from light to dark and hue ranging from red, through yellow and blue, back to red, respectively. They asked subjects to identify BCTs and then assign a focal (best example) chip to each BCT as well as assigning the boundaries of that BCT.
Respondents from the same language usually had very similar focal colours, but the boundaries indicated were often more diverse. In addition the greatest number of focal colours indicated was 11 (later modified to 12 for Russian and Hungarian- Russian has light blue and dark blue, Hungarian has 2 shades of red). The focal colours in all languages studied were white, grey, black, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, pink and brown. They are the foci of English, as well as all other languages with 11 BCTs. If a language has a fewer number of BCTs they are drawn from this list and usually in the same order.
In languages with fewer BCTs it was also shown that respondents indicated similar boundaries for those BCTs. For languages without terms for pink, and orange, these colours are usually grouped with red rather than white and yellow (for example). And BCTs are never arbitrary- all languages with 3 colour terms have red, white and black, for example, they never have white, green and yellow. Additionally every language with a term for say, brown, will also have terms for all the colour terms used by languages without brown (white, black, red, yellow, green and blue). Also languages with the one word for green and blue (grue) always picked green OR blue as a focal colour, usually green, but never turquoise.
The findings of Berlin and Kay triggered a great number of follow-up studies and their original findings were modified (to include Russian and Hungarian, for example) and also to indicate that some languages with wider groupings (only white and black as BCTs for example) might have multiple focal colours (white, red and yellow as focus for white).
Overall the main results were confirmed:
*The denotations of BCTs are best described in terms of focal colours.
*There is a limited universal set of focal colours (approximately 11, more for a couple of languages). These best representatives of BCTs are invariably among these focal colours.
*The possible types of systems form a sequence - starting with a contrast between white/ warm and black/ cool - in which the higher systems are extensions of the lower systems.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Interestingly, actually, the rainbow song goes:
"Red and yellow and pink and blue. Purple and orange and green. I can sing a rainbow..."
All these colours are basic colour terms in English... Add to them black, white, grey and brown (yucky colours  ) and you have every Basic Colour Term in English.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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cossie
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On fire! |
Location: Exiled in North East Engl...
Registered: July 2003
Messages: 1699
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When thinking of the rainbow colours, the standard Brit mnemonic is 'Richard of York Gave Battle In Vain'; there are others, but all use the same technique of initial letters corresponding to the sequential rainbow colours of Red, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. It's just the way we Brits are, y'know!
Your first post in the thread implied that turquoise was a constituent in languages with five or more basic colours, hence my reason for rabbiting on about that colour at some length.
My specific linguistic interest is language development rather than pure semantics. I thus still have difficulties with research that apparently ignores language development in determining what constitutes basic colour terms. English got along without a term for 'pink' until around 350 years ago, and the Oxford English Dictionary - the definitive authority on the development of English - specifically identifies pink as becoming a colour name by visual transfer; it was the same colour as the flower called a pink. Other colour names have entered the language in precisely the same way - for example 'olive' in the early seventeenth century and 'lemon' half a century later. Admittedly, these colour names often were, and sometimes still are rendered as 'olive green' or 'lemon yellow' in a similar fashion to 'turquoise blue' as mentioned in an earlier post. But that is not the case with 'lilac' (early 18th cenrury) or 'plum' (early twentieth century), neither of which have ever been expressed as shades of purple.
So, to me, the issue is this. I can, in general terms, understand the thrust of the research (though it is not universally accepted - see the link from the original Wikipedia which casts doubt upon both sample size and integrity); I can even to some extent understand the methodology. But ultimately the thesis is that in relation to basic colour terms language develops in a particular way.
But, in English, how CAN there be a linguistic distinction between 'pink' and 'lilac' - both words entered the language in precisely the same way, and both are stand-alone colour descriptors. Put another way, 'pink' supplanted 'pale red' as the description of the colour in question, whilst 'lilac' supplanted 'pale purple'. Either way, the words are linguistically absolutely congruent, so how can it be reasonable to impute a basic characteristic to one while denying it to the other?
So, in a nutshell, whilst it may be true that in a non-linguistic exercise certain colours may be identified as basic, surely the conclusions drawn from that exercise are of ophthalmic rather than linguistic relevance.
Saben, I should emphasise that I'm not being deliberately obstructive; I think the whole issue is fascinating. I simply see an apparent contradiction, and I'd enjoy taking it further if you're interested.
For a' that an' a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man tae man, the worrld o'er
Shall brithers be, for a' that.
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saben
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On fire! |
Registered: May 2003
Messages: 1537
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Lilac and pink are different simply because we see them as different, distinct entities. English used to only have 10 BCTs, now we have 11. It is interesting that we now define pink as deserving of its own status, but not purple. To call lilac pale purple seems natural, to call pink pale red seems accurate but convoluted.
The more one studies semantics the more one learns about how both arbitrary and consistent the human brain is, and how contradictory. There so much that is common across languages, yet so much that only holds value because we assign value to it.
Look at contronyms like "liberal" a liberal can mean someone socially progressive and economically conservative, or someone socially conservative and economically progressive, depending on the country you are in. Yet the source of both words is the same.
Language is full of seeming contradictions. Just like humans, I guess.
Look at this tree. I cannot make it blossom when it suits me nor make it bear fruit before its time [...] No matter what you do, that seed will grow to be a peach tree. You may wish for an apple or an orange, but you will get a peach.
Master Oogway
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