snugglebitch: (Default)
Ceridwen ([personal profile] snugglebitch) wrote in [personal profile] recursiveparadox 2009-08-12 04:08 pm (UTC)

Honestly, I'm not advocating anything about definitions of words, but definitions of people. This is why I gave up on the idea of teaching academically. I cannot stand this stuff, this whole post and the comments pursuant to it don't really have any real world application because language, like people, is alive and cannot be confined by anyone.

Ultimately the only thing words mean is what we know them to mean, and so if I say "I am female" (which I wouldn't but I could), having a strict definition of "female" is meaningless because whether or not someone knows that definition you've decided upon for all of us, they know what I'm talking about.

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