Was your point, then, that you should use words in the way which is most likely to be clear and useful? If so, I agree, and would rather address it directly.
The clear and useful definition varies, of course, with context—a plant biologist and a pastry chef use the word “fruit” differently, and that’s okay! The trouble arises when you have two people in conversation trying to use a word for which they have different contexts, as is the case when lay people interpret “theory” as “guess,” since that’s what it often means in prose. In such cases, more or different words are needed to ensure the right meaning is being interpreted.
My point was that “fruit” is the flip-side of Eliezer’s bird example. A bird is a feathered flying thing. What about an ostrich? What about a penguin? A fruit is the seed pod of a plant. What about eggplants? What about cucumbers? My intention wasn’t to give any advice about how to pick and choose definitions or interpret words generally or in a particular context.
The reason I started the discussion is because I think examples like “fruit” where the common usage of the word deviates from any strict definition can help us to understand language and language acquisition better. But this means that we should be asking people why they don’t think cucumbers are fruit, not insisting that cucumbers are fruit by definition of the word fruit.
The reason I started the discussion is because I think examples like “fruit” where the common usage of the word deviates from any strict definition can help us to understand language and language acquisition better.
I suggest reading up on Eleanor Rosch’s prototype theory, it explains the whole categorisation thing very clearly. The basic theory is that our categories aren’t Aristotelian classes, but are fuzzy, and formed from seeing exemplars of a class and extracting the most common features. It’s a well-understood property of cognition and has plenty of experimental backing.
In the case of cucumbers, I’d say it fails the ‘fruit’ test because it lacks almost all the features I associate with fruit: it’s not red/yellow, it’s not sweet, I don’t eat it for a snack or dessert, and it doesn’t have obvious seeds or pits inside. Therefore I would look at you very oddly if you told me that it was.
Was your point, then, that you should use words in the way which is most likely to be clear and useful? If so, I agree, and would rather address it directly.
The clear and useful definition varies, of course, with context—a plant biologist and a pastry chef use the word “fruit” differently, and that’s okay! The trouble arises when you have two people in conversation trying to use a word for which they have different contexts, as is the case when lay people interpret “theory” as “guess,” since that’s what it often means in prose. In such cases, more or different words are needed to ensure the right meaning is being interpreted.
My point was that “fruit” is the flip-side of Eliezer’s bird example. A bird is a feathered flying thing. What about an ostrich? What about a penguin? A fruit is the seed pod of a plant. What about eggplants? What about cucumbers? My intention wasn’t to give any advice about how to pick and choose definitions or interpret words generally or in a particular context.
The reason I started the discussion is because I think examples like “fruit” where the common usage of the word deviates from any strict definition can help us to understand language and language acquisition better. But this means that we should be asking people why they don’t think cucumbers are fruit, not insisting that cucumbers are fruit by definition of the word fruit.
I suggest reading up on Eleanor Rosch’s prototype theory, it explains the whole categorisation thing very clearly. The basic theory is that our categories aren’t Aristotelian classes, but are fuzzy, and formed from seeing exemplars of a class and extracting the most common features. It’s a well-understood property of cognition and has plenty of experimental backing.
In the case of cucumbers, I’d say it fails the ‘fruit’ test because it lacks almost all the features I associate with fruit: it’s not red/yellow, it’s not sweet, I don’t eat it for a snack or dessert, and it doesn’t have obvious seeds or pits inside. Therefore I would look at you very oddly if you told me that it was.
Thanks for the recommendation.