On 9/19/2011 2:40 AM, Invisible wrote:
>>> Nobody worries for one second about saying things like "Word
>>> misunderstood what I told it to do". Because very few people are stupid
>>> enough to believe that a computer program like Word actually
>>> "understands" anything. Similarly, our language is full of such
>>> short-cuts, who's meaning is obvious. The only reason we're having this
>>> conversation is that a few nutcases want to pretend that their invisible
>>> friend made the universe. Well, that's their problem.
>>
>> There is no need to be rude and offensive.
>
> I wasn't aware that I was. I'm just exasperated that I asked a simple
> question who's meaning is obvious, and yet people are splitting hairs
> over semantic quibbles. (Which I guess just means that nobody actually
> knows the answer... which is cool, I guess.)
>

The problem is, its not a semantic quibble. Its the difference between 
talking about things scientifically, and talking about them in a way 
that a) isn't accurate, and b) is pretty much the way those that are 
absolute enemies of science use the term. Its like calling it a semantic 
quibble to ask, "Was that backstroke you got swimming", when you "meant" 
actual swimming, but the "context" of how you used the word implies you 
"might have" meant it in terms of, "swimmingly", and "backstroke" could 
be construed to mean something entirely different. It wouldn't help 
matters if their was a well known collection of people dressing in the 
clothing of the time the phrase was common, giving massages, who thought 
"swimming" was evil, and morally corrupting society.

And believe me, there are at least two other analogies that are less 
nice that I thought of, for how semantic quibbles "do" matter.

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