The Quebec Office for the French Language takes the approach of suggesting terms of French origin to replace English terms that people use every day. If their suggested term sticks, it becomes the standard, and if not, they acknowledge that people use the English term and accept it. It seems like a good balance between being descriptivist and proscriptivist, or at least the best workable balance.
I never before thought about how artificial are the connections between symbols and sounds. In formal logic and mathematico-computer-y approaches to natural language you absolutely never get this approach, that I've seen at least. Even rigid adherence to standardised grammar and spelling turns out to be "technique", more legacy of the 20th century masquerading as natural law. Thought provoking piece, thanks.
Adherence to grammar, as we all know from our native language, is spontaneous; you don't need to think about it - it's just there unconsciously. Language exists more fully in this sense than it does in the tables that represent this. It's tricky because of course language does follow rules, but it's the pointing this out and treating the symbol as the thing - Heidegger's classic critique of metaphysics - which is at issue.
This and your article on medicine referenced here have been very useful in my opinion, in pointing out how being able / forced to make decisions on something can in fact mean that both options are worse than not having the option at all. Like with most critiques of modernity, realizing this will not let us solve the problem but I do believe thinking about these subjects can help us live a more meaningful live despite modernity.
Very Interesting, with your conclusion their is somat very close to what's happened in the army, in that, ya get the army making documents about Doctrine, this categorisation of army practices makes it harder for the Officers to be fluid with tactics or strategy on the battlefield, and as such cause folk to get stuck in a rock, paper, scissors mindset.
The Quebec Office for the French Language takes the approach of suggesting terms of French origin to replace English terms that people use every day. If their suggested term sticks, it becomes the standard, and if not, they acknowledge that people use the English term and accept it. It seems like a good balance between being descriptivist and proscriptivist, or at least the best workable balance.
I never before thought about how artificial are the connections between symbols and sounds. In formal logic and mathematico-computer-y approaches to natural language you absolutely never get this approach, that I've seen at least. Even rigid adherence to standardised grammar and spelling turns out to be "technique", more legacy of the 20th century masquerading as natural law. Thought provoking piece, thanks.
Thank you, Dugan!
Adherence to grammar, as we all know from our native language, is spontaneous; you don't need to think about it - it's just there unconsciously. Language exists more fully in this sense than it does in the tables that represent this. It's tricky because of course language does follow rules, but it's the pointing this out and treating the symbol as the thing - Heidegger's classic critique of metaphysics - which is at issue.
This and your article on medicine referenced here have been very useful in my opinion, in pointing out how being able / forced to make decisions on something can in fact mean that both options are worse than not having the option at all. Like with most critiques of modernity, realizing this will not let us solve the problem but I do believe thinking about these subjects can help us live a more meaningful live despite modernity.
Mate you’ve got at the very heart of my philosophy of modernity
Very Interesting, with your conclusion their is somat very close to what's happened in the army, in that, ya get the army making documents about Doctrine, this categorisation of army practices makes it harder for the Officers to be fluid with tactics or strategy on the battlefield, and as such cause folk to get stuck in a rock, paper, scissors mindset.
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