{"id":1030,"date":"2011-01-07T13:13:28","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T18:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/?p=1030"},"modified":"2011-01-07T13:13:28","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T18:13:28","slug":"on-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/2011\/01\/07\/on-good\/","title":{"rendered":"On “Good”"},"content":{"rendered":"

We now continue our ongoing\u00a0exploration<\/a> of the interesting new general-semantics\u00a0concept called “generic terms.”\u00a0 Remember that the concept comes from the notion that language, by its nature, is generic<\/em>,\u00a0introduced to rival Alfred Korzybski’s notion of seeing\u00a0language as abstract<\/em>, which is how general semantics typically frames language.<\/p>\n

“Good” is a word of interest when it comes to the discussion of generic terms.\u00a0 “Good” is a very<\/em> generic word.\u00a0 “Good” can mean any number of more specific things in any given context.\u00a0 Understanding that the word “good” is generic helps listeners understand that the notion is vague and it needs specificity if listeners want to more completely understand their speakers.<\/p>\n

For example, take this statement:<\/p>\n

‘<\/span><\/div>

“This blog post is good.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Say you read that statement and you agreed with it.\u00a0 With what specifically<\/em> did you agree?<\/p>\n

That is, what specifically<\/em> is good about this blog post?\u00a0 Is the writing?\u00a0 Is the editing?\u00a0 Is the punctuating?\u00a0 Or is it the color?\u00a0 The typeface?\u00a0 Maybe its styling and theming?\u00a0 Is its news, in light of all the crappy news you’re heard today?\u00a0 Is its opinion?\u00a0 Or something else entirely “good” about it?<\/p>\n

You don’t really know from the statement “This blog post is good.”\u00a0 You might think<\/em> you know, but the context of the statement isn’t given.<\/p>\n

This means that in order to understand why<\/em>\u00a0this\u00a0blog post is\u00a0regarded as “good,” you need to dig a little deeper and ask.\u00a0 You essentially ask this question:<\/p>\n

‘<\/span><\/div>

“What do you mean by ‘good’?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is, you\u00a0ask this:<\/p>\n

‘<\/span><\/div>

“You use the word ‘good.’ What more specific term\u00a0helps me understand what you mean by the word\u00a0‘good’?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Let’s suppose you get\u00a0a clarification.\u00a0 What might\u00a0that clarification\u00a0sound like?\u00a0 It might sound like this:<\/p>\n

‘<\/span><\/div>

“Well-argued.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is:<\/p>\n

‘<\/span><\/div>

“This blog post is well-argued.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This clarification means that the statement “This blog post is good” means more specifically<\/em> “This blog post is well-argued<\/em>.”\u00a0 That is one helluva more specific statement than “This blog post is good”!<\/p>\n

So?\u00a0 So what?\u00a0 Why care about these kinds of specifications?<\/p>\n

Well, take the purchase of new technology.\u00a0 You might go to your local Best Buy and see the Sony Dash<\/a>.\u00a0 The salesperson might say, “Oh yeah, that’s the Sony Dash.\u00a0 It’s really good!”<\/p>\n

If you don’t ask questions into the salesperson’s meaning of the generic word “good,” you might just assume he means the same specific terms<\/em> that come to your mind when you use the word “good.”<\/p>\n

But you might be in for a hassle then.\u00a0 You might find that “good” for you means “works just like my alarm clock.”\u00a0 Upon purchasing it, you might find that it lacks some of your alarm clock’s functionality, which\u00a0immediately disqualifies\u00a0it as your replacement alarm clock.\u00a0 Had you investigated the salesperson’s meaning of “good,” you might have learned that for the salesperson, “good” meant something much more generic, such as “puts a lot of content on a bedside device.”<\/p>\n

Note that “works just like my alarm clock” is not the same thing as “puts a lot of content on a bedside device.”\u00a0\u00a0And also note that “good” stood for both things.<\/em><\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 Because the word “good” is a generic term that stands for a great number of other things.<\/p>\n

Increased understanding that language, by its nature, is generic provokes the mission to dig a bit deeper into speakers’ and writers’ meanings, to get them to be more specific\u00a0in order\u00a0to understand them more clearly.\u00a0 Their being highly generic may make them sound highly agreeable when their being more specific might make them disagreeable.\u00a0 That is, their being highly generic may make them persuasive when their being more specific might make them dissuasive.\u00a0 Of course, their persuasive power could be problematic, especially when they persuade you to get on board with something you find objectionable.<\/p>\n

“Good” is not the only generic term out there.\u00a0 By definition, all of language exhibits some magnitude of\u00a0genericity.\u00a0 “Good” is just\u00a0one popular generic word in English, one I find of persuasive power over populations of people.<\/p>\n

So I ask you<\/em>, What are some other highly generic words that come to mind?\u00a0 Add yours in the comments section below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We now continue our ongoing\u00a0exploration of the interesting new general-semantics\u00a0concept called “generic terms.”\u00a0 Remember that the concept comes from the notion that language, by its nature, is generic,\u00a0introduced to rival Alfred Korzybski’s notion of seeing\u00a0language as abstract, which is how general semantics typically frames language. “Good” is a word of interest when it comes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,262,128,260,236,263,261],"class_list":["post-1030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-alfred-korzybski","tag-clarification","tag-generic-terms","tag-good","tag-language-as-generic","tag-sony-dash","tag-specification"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1030"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1037,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1030\/revisions\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}