# What determines the meaning of words? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 9, 2020, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333 "2020-06-09T23:58:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/21 "2020-06-17T04:38:31Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > You are correct, at the larger scale there is usually a consensus meaning. We could not have dictionaries if it were not so. Let me ask you this: How many people does it take to establish a “usage community”? A hundred people? Ten people? Two people? One person? > > Aha. That’s _my_ answer. It takes _one person_ to establish a “usage community”. Usage varies among _individual people_. Have you considered the possibility of speaking to oneself? To have mental conversations - deliberations using articulate words - with yourself? There exist artificial languages, and it is not unreasonable for a single person to invent and use an artificial language _only to communicate with themselves_. Even if you deny the possibility of immediate self conversation, you must surely admit that it is possible to invent your own language and write yourself notes, and even (after the span of a few days) reply to your own notes? What is the relevance of any of this to the nature of how _actual_ language evolves in human cultures? Talking to yourself in gibberish that nobody else understands is usually considered a sign of mental illness, not use of language. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/22 "2020-06-17T06:51:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > My point is that we cannot communicate if each person is free to assign whatever meaning to words they wish. Communications require there be a common agreement on meaning. You have to use words in the way that other people expect them to be used. _Successful_ communications require a common agreement on meaning. I would characterize your previous post as a communication despite my inability to derive any useful meaning from it. That is not to say I could not find _any_ meaning for the words you gave, only that the meanings did not make sense to me. Surely you will agree that such a thing exists as a _miscommunication_, no? And yet there are instances where a miscommunication occurs but both participants walk away thinking they got the right message. You can take my buffalo/hexaca example from upthread. Or here is another example, I say: “Take that with you, please” (referring to object A) You hear: “Take that with you, please” (referring to object B) Now, it was never explicitly said what “that” refers to. Depending on the situation, we could go for days or possibly forever without knowing a miscommunication had occured. I believe any theory of semantics needs to work even during a miscommunication. Here, it seems to me that you and I have assigned different meanings to the word “that”. What is your explanation? And here is another example, Clement VII says, “I am the pope, the pope is me and not Urban VI.” Urban VI says, “I am the pope, the pope is me and not Clement VII.” This one is more tricky. We have two conflicting definitions. There is no miscommunication here, both people know full well what the other is saying. But it still appears to me that the one thinks “the pope” means Clement VII, while the other thinks “the pope” means Urban VI. And before you start your explanation, consider also these two sentences, Clement VII says, “The pope hereby excommunicates Urban VI.” Urban VI says, “The pope hereby excommunicates Clement VII.” and the fact that each sentence is considered _true_ by their respective speakers, and false by the other. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/23 "2020-06-17T07:18:40Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > What is the relevance of any of this to the nature of how _actual_ language evolves in human cultures? Talking to yourself in gibberish that nobody else understands is usually considered a sign of mental illness, not use of language. Having established that usage communities can be as small as one person, my next point is that consensus-forming is a process which takes place on the individual level. As you correctly pointed out before, no telepathy is involved; individuals must learn language through intuition, trial and error, and inference. My theory of semantics is that individuals actually develop their own language to match that of their culture and community, at least to the extent necessary to communicate most of the time. I don’t think the process of language acquisition is perfect, and I don’t think it should be. That is where language evolution comes in. I mentioned it in the previous thread, but young children (and adults) can use and understand the offensive nature of curse words without actually knowing the meaning or etymology behind the word. People can learn new languages without ever being explicitly taught. People can create new languages from scratch. People can invent new words. People can disagree as to the specific meaning of words as used in a particular context. If your semantic theory presupposes the existence of some cultural consensus, I have trouble understanding how it explains these phenomena. For the vast majority of communication, sure, everybody is on the same page and your theory works fine. That doesn’t mean you can wave away the edge cases as irrelevant gibberish from the mentally ill. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 8:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/24 "2020-06-17T08:40:09Z")
The inventor of a word has very little say in what it ultimately means. There is a story (He relayed it in his _Playboy_ interview, IIRC) that when Paul McCartney first heard that John Lennon had been murdered, the first thing he said was “Bummer.” He was, if not _the_ originator of the word, probably _an_ originator of it for the hippie generation. I totally believe that he uses it privately in a very different manner than the rest of us and he certainly did not mean for the murder of his old friend to be perceived as inconsequential. But I wish he’d shown more gravitas. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/25 "2020-06-17T09:10:05Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Having established that usage communities can be as small as one person No such thing has been “established”. You’ve \*asserted \*it, but that’s not the same thing at all. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/26 "2020-06-17T09:18:25Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > …That is where language evolution comes in…People can disagree as to the specific meaning of words as used in a particular context… You started off by apparently thinking you are the only descriptivist here, and you just seem to be continuing to construct a series of straw men. Of course language evolves, and of course people sometimes disagree on the meaning of words. Nobody has claimed otherwise. Consensus-forming is a dynamic process, and language is constantly changing. Nobody has claimed that there is a _perfect_ consensus, or a _static_ consensus on meaning. The point is that cultural consensus defines an _objective_ meaning for words. Words mean things. This whole ridiculous discussion started when I pointed out that the meaning of “cunt” is not a subjective question, it is an objective empirical one, based on the cultural consensus about what the word means. The fact that it has objective meaning does not imply that the meaning cannot be in flux, or that different cultures or different societal subsets might use the word differently. But a linguist will determine that by observing usage empirically, and arrive at an _objective_ answer. What is in dispute is your claim that the word can mean whatever an individual speaker _intends_ it to mean. That’s not the way language works. Anyway, this has been just about the least interesting or informative thread on language I’ve participated in here. I’m done with this. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/27 "2020-06-17T09:37:39Z")
[Missed edit window] In clarification, the point that you claimed to dispute is this: If you say the word “cunt” in a given cultural context, you invoke all the semantic baggage associated with that word in the culture in which you speak it. You cannot magic that away by _intending_ the word to mean something other than what it objectively _does_ mean in that culture. People don’t just get to choose their own meanings for words. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Kearsen1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen1)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/28 "2020-06-17T14:03:17Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Eheheh, the image of a lawyer yelling at kids about “Proper English” aside, I think both you and the hypothetical child understood the meaning of the words just fine. You may believe “Proper English” is set in stone, but I tried to craft this thread around a bigger question. It’s not so much about whether the English language (or any language) can or should evolve, it’s about how meaning is associated with words. > > Surely you will admit that the “I ain’t got no money to buy them things” is at least a variant of the English language, and that the words in that sentence do have meaning, both to you and to the kid? Even if it’s not “Proper English”, they are still words and they still have meaning. > > ~Max Proper English is not really required to have an understanding of words used in context. I think most everyone recognizes what that sentence is intended to convey. Grading papers on the other hand does require a grasp of how to use words and where. We just need to figure out whether this hurts or helps or whether or not we need to be learning and grading “proper English” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/29 "2020-06-17T18:56:50Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I totally believe that he uses it privately in a very different manner than the rest of us and he certainly did not mean for the murder of his old friend to be perceived as inconsequential. This is, I think, strong support for my argument. I claimed that each individual decides what words mean to them in context. The word “bummer” might mean one thing to Sir McCartney when he says it, and something else when heard by you or me. If he were to reply the same way in an interview today, he certainly would not mean for the murder of his old friend to be perceived as inconsequential. You or I might interpret his words as meaning it was inconsequential, in which case we have a miscommunication. The argument in opposition appears to be that language does not work that way. In the time between 1980 and 2020, let’s _assume_ that there is some threshold of consensus among the English-speaking world that “bummer”, in the context of answering “what do you have to say about X”, now implies an attitude that X is inconsequential. The argument in opposition appears to be that “bummer” now has an _objective_ meaning, and therefore when Sir McCartney says “bummer” during a 2020 interview on John Lenon’s death, he means John Lenon’s death is inconsequential. Nevermind what Sir McCartney _intended_, the meaning of his spoken word is objective and clear: John Lenon’s death is inconsequential. Could someone perhaps explain what I have misinterpreted? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/30 "2020-06-17T19:13:41Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > The inventor of a word has very little say in what it ultimately means. There is a story (He relayed it in his _Playboy_ interview, IIRC) that when Paul McCartney first heard that John Lennon had been murdered, the first thing he said was “Bummer.” He was, if not _the_ originator of the word, probably _an_ originator of it for the hippie generation. I totally believe that he uses it privately in a very different manner than the rest of us and he certainly did not mean for the murder of his old friend to be perceived as inconsequential. But I wish he’d shown more gravitas. “Bummer” meaning a depressing experience dates back to the early 1970s at least (here’s a quote from a book which has a 1972 citation [Dictionary of the Teenage Revolution and Its Aftermath - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=4JiuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA31&dq=%22a+bummer%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi11--6xonqAhXDoHIEHaUADncQ6AEwB3oECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=%22a%20bummer%22&f=false)). There’s no way McCartney originated or popularized the word in 1980. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/31 "2020-06-17T19:23:03Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > “Bummer” meaning a depressing experience dates back to the early 1970s at least (here’s a quote from a book which has a 1972 citation [Dictionary of the Teenage Revolution and Its Aftermath - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=4JiuCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA31&dq=%22a+bummer%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi11--6xonqAhXDoHIEHaUADncQ6AEwB3oECAkQAg#v=onepage&q=%22a%20bummer%22&f=false)). There’s no way McCartney originated or popularized the word in 1980. Ah. Here’s the interview I think - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0EXODSLbsI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0EXODSLbsI) - he said “It’s a drag, isn’t it?” and then said “Cheers.” (“cheers” being a UK phrase used to mean hello, goodbye, thanks, we’re done now, and seemingly everything else) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/32 "2020-06-17T19:26:48Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > No such thing has been “established”. You’ve \*asserted \*it, but that’s not the same thing at all. Would you like to argue against my assertion? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/33 "2020-06-17T21:18:01Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Would you like to argue against my assertion? Bald assertions don’t really need to be argued against. Simple denial works just fine. But sure, I’ll play: One person is not a community. There, I argued against it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/34 "2020-06-17T21:40:31Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > _Successful_ communications require a common agreement on meaning. I would characterize your previous post as a communication despite my inability to derive any useful meaning from it. That is not to say I could not find _any_ meaning for the words you gave, only that the meanings did not make sense to me. Surely you will agree that such a thing exists as a _miscommunication_, no? If you think a miscommunication is a form of communication, then your post is my cite. A miscommunication is the opposite of a communication and is therefore not an example of it. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/35 "2020-06-17T21:47:20Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Bald assertions don’t really need to be argued against. Simple denial works just fine. But sure, I’ll play: One person is not a community. There, I argued against it. My argument was that one person can constitute a “usage community”. It is no refutation to claim that one person is not a community, or at least the way I see it my argument just becomes ‘if a usage community requires more than one person, then all you have said of usage communities can be said of one person’. Neither do I think I made a bald assertion. I backed my claim up with multiple examples, [ul][li]A single person who converses with himself in a private language[/li][li]A single person who accidentally develops an idiosyncratic pidgin language[/li][li]A single person who is acquiring language for the first time and accidentally develops an idiosyncratic definition of some word[/li][li]A single person who maintains a different definition of a word than other conversants[/ul][/li] ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2020, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/36 "2020-06-17T21:51:07Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > If you think a miscommunication is a form of communication, then your post is my cite. A miscommunication is the opposite of a communication and is therefore not an example of it. I do think a miscommunication is a form of communication, specifically one which was unsuccessful, in the same way that I think a failed experiment is a form of experiment, or an unclear broadcast a form of broadcast, or a fallacy a form of argument. Is this truly where you and I disagree? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 8:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/37 "2020-06-22T08:32:05Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > This whole ridiculous discussion started when I pointed out that the meaning of “cunt” is not a subjective question, it is an objective empirical one, based on the cultural consensus about what the word means. The fact that it has objective meaning does not imply that the meaning cannot be in flux, or that different cultures or different societal subsets might use the word differently. But a linguist will determine that by observing usage empirically, and arrive at an _objective_ answer. How can you arrive at an objective answer on a word’s meaning when you admit that a word can be used differently? Why would a linguists opinion hold greater weight than the person using a specific word in a specific way? You state it has an objective meaning as a “fact”. I dispute that. Certainly for “cunt” I’m not aware of any cultural consensus that has been reached that would give it a fixed, definite meaning. The only thing that matters to me is how the person using it intends it to be meant. If you asked me what the meaning of “cunt” is I would not be able to give a full answer unless I knew how it was being used and to give a completely accurate answer I’d only know that by asking the person using it what they mean by it. ---
**Author:** ![FlikTheBlue](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fliktheblue/32/10972_2.png) [@FlikTheBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlikTheBlue)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/38 "2020-06-22T12:43:48Z")
Most people use “cunt”, and the vast majority of words, in the same way. That’s why we can understand each other. The linguist , as noted by Riemann, determines that usage by observation. I personally don’t know anyone who uses the term as anything other than a strong derogatory insult towards women. Are there other people who use it differently? As far as not knowing how someone was using a word and not being able to understand them unless you ask that person what they mean, that seems silly to me. Unless it’s a word I’ve never encountered before, or a word with multiple meanings for one given pronunciation like two / to / too, for / fore, four, there / their / they’re etc., it’s unusual that I have to ask someone what they mean by their use of a specific word, unless they’re doing the old Abbott and Costello routine. In context it’s usually obvious what they meant. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/39 "2020-06-22T13:56:38Z")
Ultimately, I think we all speak our own personal language, it just overlaps with other people’s languages to a greater or lesser degree. But in order to communicate effectively, our personal languages need to overlap significantly with those we’re trying to communicate with. So meanings for public discourse are established through use in a community, and if you want to successfully communicate, you’ll need to align your own meanings with those of the community. That doesn’t mean there still won’t be tons of words that mean something slightly different or completely different to you than they do to other people. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2020, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333/40 "2020-06-22T17:29:50Z")
> [@FlikTheBlue](#): > > Most people use “cunt”, and the vast majority of words, in the same way. That’s why we can understand each other. The linguist , as noted by Riemann, determines that usage by observation. I personally don’t know anyone who uses the term as anything other than a strong derogatory insult towards women. Are there other people who use it differently? Oh my yes. In my own cultural circle it is used sparingly but even then it is hardly ever used as a derogatory term towards women, it is pretty much exclusively reserved for men. And it can certainly be used in a friendly way, even as a term of endearment and certainly in moments of erotic play it has completely different connotations. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-determines-the-meaning-of-words/855333.md?page=3)