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From: zwicky@osu-eddie.UUCP (Elizabeth D. Zwicky)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Is English decaying rapidly? (dictionaries)
Message-ID: <804@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Nov-85 17:20:36 EST
Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.804
Posted: Thu Nov 14 17:20:36 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Nov-85 05:37:45 EST
References: <224@opus.UUCP>
Reply-To: zwicky@osu-eddie.UUCP (Elizabeth D. Zwicky)
Organization: Ohio State Univ., CIS Dept., Cols, Oh.
Lines: 20

In article <224@opus.UUCP> rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) writes:
>One of the notable failures of some dictionaries and of many people who use
>dictionaries is the failure to distinguish "meaning" from "usage".  
>  .... At that point
>someone can pick up the dictionary and say, "See, it does so mean xxx" when
>in fact all the dictionary is saying is, "Some people use this word to mean
>xxx."

If you can accurately distinguish the use of a word from its meaning,
you have solved one of the most intractable problems in the philosophy
of language. In fact, maybe the only problem in the philosophy of language.
At what point are you justified in saying that usage becomes meaning? If
usage isn't meaning, what is?

I happily admit that we can't all be Humpty Dumpty and have words
mean whatever we want them to, and there are some cases which are
clearly meaning and some which are clearly usage. However, the line
between them is very vague, and may be a misconception altogether.

	-Elizabeth D> Zwicky