Patience makes sense
Nonsense is all the statements that we have given up trying to interpret.
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
About Me
- Name:Michael Felberbaum
- Location:New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Previous Posts
- Questions are language demands
- Objectives and plans go hand-in-hand
- We cannot describe how we operate
- Bad Advice
- Easy Conversation
- Meaning and experience
- Undressed thought
- Questions assume.
- Thought behind Language
- Conversational types
3 Comments:
(1) Disagreement: If we stop trying to interpret a statement because there is nothing left to interpret (i.e., full comprehension has been reached for purposes of the statement), the statement is not nonsense.
(2) Agreement with the result but not with the reasoning: If we stop trying to interpret a statement because there never was anything there to interpret initially, the statement is nonsense. For example, see the following by Douglas Adams:
Gashee morphousite, thou expungiest quoopisk!
Fripping lyshus wimbgunts, awhilst moongrovenly kormzibs.
Bleem miserable venchit! Bleem forever mestinglish asunder frapt!
Gerond withoutitude form into formless bloit, why not then? Moose.
(Note that this differs from Jabberwocky, which is gibberish but not nonsense.)
(3) Disagreement: Following on #2, a statement can be nonsense even if an attempt at interpretation is ongoing.
(2) is interesting.
I'm curious about the reasoning: how are you supposed to determine that "there was never anything there to interpret initially?" without trying to interpret the statement?
The peculiarity of our communication is that we are likely to label something as nonsense when it is difficult to interpret, even though it is still interpretable. This is a failure of effort on the part of the listener as much as it may be a failure of clarity on the part of the communicator. However, as listeners, we are much more likely to blame the communicator, than we are to blame ourselves for our lack of effort.
Very astute, I think, is "davver"'s distinction between gibberish and nonsense. A subtle, and important distinction upon which I would like him to elaborate.
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