{"id":974,"date":"2010-12-21T14:43:51","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T19:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/?p=974"},"modified":"2010-12-21T14:43:51","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T19:43:51","slug":"language-as-generic-vs-language-as-abstract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/2010\/12\/21\/language-as-generic-vs-language-as-abstract\/","title":{"rendered":"Language as Generic vs. Language as Abstract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Language, by its nature, is generic.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s the opinion herein I forward, and I hope you take a strong liking to.<\/p>\n

Seeing language\u00a0as abstract is a common vision within general semantics, but seeing language\u00a0as generic<\/em> is an uncommon, new<\/em>\u00a0vision within general semantics which leads to seeing language as representing far fewer characteristics than the things it represents have.<\/p>\n

The word “abstract,” we’re told, means “representing fewer characteristics,” but the use of the word “abstract” in portraiture suggests a different meaning: “abstract” roughly means “distorted.”\u00a0\u00a0Employing that meaning within general semantics,\u00a0“abstract” means that language, being abstract, may distort its subject.\u00a0 Surely,\u00a0language can and does, but that’s a whole different quality of language than its being generic.<\/p>\n

Language, being generic, naturally<\/em> represents fewer characteristics than\u00a0its subject has.\u00a0 That is, “generic” is a more proper word for talking about represented characteristics than the word “abstract.”\u00a0 At least that is my opinion, and hopefully you will soon see why.<\/p>\n

For example, take the word “apple.”\u00a0 When you think of an apple, do all of its characteristics come to mind?\u00a0 If you think so, did its seeds come to mind?\u00a0 Did the worm inside it come to mind?\u00a0 Did the cells of it come to mind?\u00a0 What about the cellular structure of those cells?\u00a0 What about the variability of structure amongst the cells?\u00a0 Each speck on the skin–did those come to mind, too?\u00a0 What about the dent in the skin?\u00a0 Not all apples have them … but did each apple that exists come to your head?\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 The split second I said “when you think of an apple”?\u00a0 Actually, only a relatively small number of characteristics come to mind when you hear or read the word “apple.”\u00a0 That is not wrong; instead, that is the nature of language: It represents only a relatively small number of characteristics its subject has.<\/p>\n

The truth is, only a few characteristics are represented by all words, and so, to that degree, all words (and more globally, language) is generic<\/em>.\u00a0 The profundity of such a claim is that you can never say all about something in a few words, or even in innumerable words<\/em>.\u00a0 Language will always be more generic than what it represents.\u00a0 “Generic” means<\/em> “representing fewer characteristics.”<\/p>\n

Take for instance the sentence, “Two planes flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.”\u00a0 Just how generic of a statement is it?\u00a0 It is highly<\/em> generic if you were in New York City that day.\u00a0 The statement doesn’t detail anywhere near the number of characteristics that day had,\u00a0either chronologically\u00a0or emotionally for each NYCer.\u00a0 We can use more language to make the statement less generic, to detail more characteristics represented in that sentence.\u00a0 However, no matter how many words you write, the referents for those sentences will have more characteristics than the words represent.<\/p>\n

Surely, the statement\u00a0\u00a0“Two planes flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001” is like a map and abstract–a distortment to some degree.\u00a0 However, saying that it’s abstract\u00a0doesn’t call such precise attention to the sentence’s lack of representation for countless characteristics underlying the sentence.\u00a0 Saying that it’s generic does<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What value does this lesson have to you?\u00a0 As you listen to language, keep in mind that there are more characteristics to the subjects you’re learning about\u00a0than are represented in their corresponding stories.\u00a0 The news lacks innumerable characteristics.\u00a0 The newspapers, the blogs, the rumors you hear, the stories you’re told.\u00a0 Never think that you know it all.\u00a0 Instead, you might know some<\/em>, but there will never be knowing all<\/em>.\u00a0 Characteristics go unrepresented in the stories you digest.\u00a0 But also in the stories you weave: You cannot say all, either.<\/p>\n

And so I hope you will begin to use the word “generic” in your general semantics discussions when characterizing language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Language, by its nature, is generic. That’s the opinion herein I forward, and I hope you take a strong liking to. Seeing language\u00a0as abstract is a common vision within general semantics, but seeing language\u00a0as generic is an uncommon, new\u00a0vision within general semantics which leads to seeing language as representing far fewer characteristics than the things […]<\/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":[239,128,237,236,238],"class_list":["post-974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-characteristics","tag-generic-terms","tag-language-as-abstract","tag-language-as-generic","tag-portraiture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974","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=974"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/974\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}