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Damn the Semiotics! All Hail the Lexicographer-Judge (If Only We Could Find Him)

05 Thursday Dec 2013

Posted by danielwalldammit in Religion

≈ 28 Comments

Tags

Authority, Cultural Conservatism, Dictionary, Language, Rhetoric, Semantics, Semiotics, Vocabulary, Words

046

Consulting Lexi-Kitties

I am continually amazed at the faith some conservative Christians place in the authoritative pronouncements of a single ancient book. No, not that one. I am talking about the dictionary.

…pardon me, ‘thuh dictionary’.

I have long since lost track of the number of times someone has told me what this or that word means according to ‘thuh dictionary’. It could be any word, but frankly, the most common ones to land me in front of the court of lexicography are ‘homophobia’ and ‘atheism’. Significantly, I don’t think many of the people who launch into this sort of dictionary-whinging gambit have even looked up the words they hold court over. If you ask them which dictionary, they will often tell you ‘Websters’, as if that meant a damned thing!

Dictionary-Whinging (Sorta verb-like) Pronounce the g like a j, dammit. It means being a jerk, but a certain kind of jerk. …a jerk with or over a dictionary.

Sometimes folks will invoke the power of ‘Merriam-Webster‘. This at least is a real entity, a branch of Encyclopaedia Britannica, so that will at least tell us something about the source, but it doesn’t do much to pin down the book in question. As to the name ‘Webster’s’? That is in the public domain. Anybody can publish a Webster’s Dictionary. You, me, the homeless guy down the street could write out a couple definitions and call it a “Webster’s Dictionary” Hell I could translate my cats noises and call it a Webster’s Dictionary.

In fact, let’s do that!

WEBSTER’S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY OF ARCTIC CATISMS

Compilerized and Authoritated by Daniel S. Dammit

July or maybe December, 2013.

Editorial Staff: Fido, Junkmail, and Auto-Kitty

Mrrour: Pet. (e.g. ‘Pet me please!’)

Me’a’our: Pet, used with a sense of urgency (e.g. ‘pet me now dammit!’)

Mmmmmeuurrrrrr: Pet, used in a polite way (e.g. “If you have a moment, could you please pet me, …and perhaps change teh literbox. …no hurry.”)

Meow: Ironic Usage. It means; “I don’t actually sound like this human. You are imagining things.”

Meeeh!: Head-Butt (e.g. I’m lonely, human. Please head-butt me this very instant.”)

There. That’s my Webster’s Dictionary. Suck it Lexi-Judges! You have to use that now when you interpret cat. I has spoken.

(Aside over. We now bring you back to your regularly scheduled, cat-free, post.)

The bottom line is that a significant portion of people citing the authority of ‘Webster’s’ are simply bluffing. They haven’t looked anything up, much less thought about it. I guess they figure the meaning of the words in question is so obvious to anyone but the idiot they are talking to (which if often me) that there is no real need to consult the authority of the imaginary lexical-judge; it goes without saying that this good Justice will back their own understanding. I guess the spirit-filled just know what thuh dictionary would say.

It seems to me that some people look upon a dictionary as a judge of sorts, or maybe a legislature, both if they get their way, but most of these folks are happy to admit that ‘thuh dictionary’ is not an executioner. No, that is a role they hope to play themselves.

One thing I find quite amusing about all of this feigned dictionary-deference is that it always works best with the really bad dictionaries. You see a good dictionary will include a number of entries spelling out a variety of different uses of a given term, but the ideal dictionary for the the lexical authoritarian contains just one reference for every word. So, on the off chance that he actually bothers to look anything up, our dictionary-whinging fellow is not going to want to bother with anything resembling choice. He wants a single entry, and (Webster’s willing) he will present that single entry as clear and convincing proof that the word in question has just that one proper meaning. …thus effectively turning the weaknesses of an incomplete dictionary into a virtue. For these purposes Dictionary.com will serve the vocabulary fascists much better than the Oxford English Dictionary. Webster’s Third New International would be right out, …at least it would be if such folks knew enough about dictionaries to realize what that infamous source of lexical permissiveness contains.

Which brings me to a second point of amusement about the art of dictionary whinging. Its practitioners seldom (perhaps never) understand how dictionaries are actually made. They haven’t studied lexicography, and they haven’t even read the methodology section of any given dictionary. Most probably don’t even know that it exists; it fits in those automatically skipped pages at the beginning. These folks certainly haven’t read Samuel Johnson’s preface to his Dictionary of the English language. If they did, the first thing they would find is that lexicographers generally don’t work the way they think they do, and they don’t intend their dictionaries to be used the way they think they do.

Now let me give you a minute to parse all the ‘they’s of the last sentence. Wait a minute! I sense a new volume of Webster’s coming. Here it is:

WEBSTER’S NEW NOT-SO-COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY OF DANOLOGICAL THEM-ITUDE

Compiled on a Lark, 2013

They: Them.

They2: Those people.

They3: Them other guys.

They4: They (like I sad …dammit!)

They5: I obviously don’t get laid often enough.

Anyway, my point is that with the possible exception of early editions of the American Heritage Dictionary, lexicographers are not legislating and they are not adjudicating language. They are informing us about common usage. In short, their approach is descriptive rather than prescriptive. This is exactly NOT the approach that those seeking to use dictionaries authoritatively would wish it to be.

To put it another way the judge in this instances refuses to do his job as the dictionary-whinging bastards of this world have it. What dictionary-makers consistently seek to do is provide us with a responsible account of the way language is actually spoken and the meanings of words that people speaking a given language actually use. What the dictionary-whinging types consistently want is an authoritative pronouncement delivered from on-high about just what meanings we SHOULD be attaching to any giving word. they want the dictionary to tell us how to use language.

That really should be end-game folks. When the judge doesn’t adjudicate; it oughtta be case-dismissed, but that is almost never the case. Pretty much every one hitting me over the head with an imaginary Websters will just go right on doing it after they have just been shown that their weapon of choice is not really meant to be used that way.

Dunning and Kruger should demand that such folks return their effect with interest.

My rant began with a reference to religious folks though, didn’t it? Okay, it did. To be fair, this is a post I dropped several months ago and just picked back up. The sticking point was just that. Do I really want to talk about the general misuse of imaginary lexical authority? Or do I want to explore the specific role of such  practices in the thinking of pious people. Tonight, my solution is this. I will make just one point about the religious variation, and that is this:

It is sort of fitting to find that people who wish to approach life as though it must be lived according to a specific set of directives from on-high would replicate that model in their approach to language. This is the prescriptive life well lived. An ought-to in every decision and an essential meaning in every word, all hard-wired right into the universe itself.

So much for the arbitrary nature of the sign!

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Arms Across the Keyboard: Teaching Computer Skills in South Africa

22 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by danielwalldammit in Education

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Africa, Ambiguity, Computers, Cross-Cultural Education, Culture, Education, Training, Translation, Vocabulary

Airedale on a Computer
(Nancy loves Airedales)

Today we have a Guest Post from a friend of mine, Nancy Sypniewski. I met Nancy when when she began doing volunteer work at an animal shelter where I served as PR, but calling her a volunteer doesn’t even come close to suggesting her full value to the shelter. She was amazing. And she was also amazing to talk to. I recently asked Nancy to share one of her stories for the Blog, and she has graciously agreed.

I don’t know if Nancy will have time to come back and answer any questions, but I wanted to include this story, because it deals with a subject I think about a great deal, teaching something in a cross-cultural setting. The story dates back to a training exercise from her days in the tech industry.

Nancy Sypniewski

We were working in South Africa. Our job was to implement a computer system that would automate the inventory of the power utility. This was back in the day of mainframe computers and big unfriendly user terminals. We first had to understand their business, determine the best method to automate their inventory, modify the “best fit” computer system, convert their existing data, thoroughly test both the modified system and converted data, develop and test customized training materials, and then finally train the people who would be using the system. These steps took thousands of man hours and multiple years.

We were finally ready to start developing our training materials. We were reminded that our audience would be tribesmen, mostly Zulu and Sutu. These men would arrive in the morning wearing a loin cloth and sandals, they would change into company provided blue jumpsuits and steel toe shoes, and then back into their tribal clothing before heading home at the end of the day. It was imperative that our training materials be full of simple language, pictures and diagrams, not because these men were of low intelligence, quite the contrary, the issue was language – English was often the 3rd, 4th or even 5th language they had learned.

Training day arrived. Our instructor had the students lay their arms across the keyboard and watch the letters appear on their terminal screen for every key they had touched. The room was filled with awe. The instructor then told the students to “Hit the key with C L E A R printed on it.” Each and every student did just that, they hit the key with the solid blast of their closed fist, causing many of the keys to pop off and fly all over the classroom. Needless to say, the students jumped up and frantically gathered the keys, now totally afraid of the new “machines” they had just destroyed. We assured them that all could be easily fixed and sent them into the break room for early tea and cookies.

Within about 20 minutes we had popped the keys back onto the keyboards and were ready to resume class. Since I had been with most of the students multiple times over the years and was a familiar face, it was decided that I would restart the class and give reassurances.

I asked that they restart the exercise by laying their arms across their keyboards while watching the letters appear as before. I then carefully said “Now, I want you to depress the key with C L E A R printed on it.” Everyone hesitated. Just then, a man in the front row raised his hand. I asked him what he wanted and he said, “Madame, I do not know what to say to make the key sad.” Luckily, everyone laughed and we had learned the lesson of careful word selection. After that, we always reminded one another to never use a $10 word when a $1 word would would do a better job.

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