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I have a lousy vocabulary and it is getting worse. It takes me ten words to say something for which there is one perfectly good word. I'm a little annoyed at that. But I will use the ten words because I want to be understood. I want what I mean to be what a listener hears.
I remember when I was young getting into trouble for sloppy speaking/writing. But I think that was more a function of my physical capability rather than a laziness as the adults in my life insisted. I see the same patterns in young people today.
In programming, one can reassign the function of an operator such that it is context sensitive. The same symbol will cause different results depending on where it is used. Language is like that -- especially English.
But I'll be damned if I will continue to try and guess what someone means when they say "Do you like [so-and-so]?" I'm way to literal. What I might do if I think there is any ambiguity is ask the questioner what they mean by "like." I'm afraid of getting this, though, "You know. Like, like."
I remember when I was young getting into trouble for sloppy speaking/writing. But I think that was more a function of my physical capability rather than a laziness as the adults in my life insisted. I see the same patterns in young people today.
In programming, one can reassign the function of an operator such that it is context sensitive. The same symbol will cause different results depending on where it is used. Language is like that -- especially English.
But I'll be damned if I will continue to try and guess what someone means when they say "Do you like [so-and-so]?" I'm way to literal. What I might do if I think there is any ambiguity is ask the questioner what they mean by "like." I'm afraid of getting this, though, "You know. Like, like."
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