I recently learned something surprising and interesting about the internet.
Scroll down to learn more.
The Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing.
The distinction is somewhat subtle. The internet is the connection of computers and software which one uses to access, among other things, the World Wide Web. The World Wide Web is are pages with texts and pictures etc which link to other pages, such as what you are viewing now. If one is talk about surfing the (world wide) web, then the internet would be the surfboard. I think most people, and myself generally use the terms interchangeably, and even knowing what I know I will probably continue to use the words interchangeably because:
a)It doesn't really matter.
b)When it comes to word definitions I think it is more important what most believe believe a word to mean than what the 'real' meaning of a word may be. If most people believe a word means one thing, but the dictionary defines it as another thing then, in my opinion, it is the dictionary that is wrong and not most people. (I consider certain descriptive nouns to be an exception to this) I believe the role of a dictionary should be descriptive and not prescriptive.
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Ah, you are retracing the footsteps of Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher who realised that our grasping for philosophic truth is often just getting muddled in the confusions of words. He said that the meaning of a word is defined by its use, which is what you are saying. A dictionary merely reflects that.
ReplyDeleteThose who think the dictionary is a kind of police force telling us what we can or cannot do are often those who are narrow in their reading and conversation so that they don't realise the range of uses.
As for the Internet, it may help to see it as pre-existing the world-wide web by several decades. Academics had what we now call email addresses to communicate with one another using their university or laboratory computers. They also stored files (texts, diagrams etc) which were sometimes available for others to see.
Around '93 the Web was probably in existence but i had never seen it. When I was collaborating with companies or colleagues, we would use FTP (file transfer protocol). If you had a modem you could hook up this way.
The WWW invented by Tim Berners-Lee opened things up, but not until there were search engines of course. Otherwise it was like being in the Soviet Union when there were telephones but no directories.
Your title picture is a representation of Dante's Inferno, I believe?
oh, I totally agree about dictionaries being wrong if they give a definition different than what people use the word for. Heather is probably sick of hearing me talk about that actually.
ReplyDeleteThe word 'irony' is a good example. 99 percent of people use the word in different ways than what the dictionary says, but there are still people that get upset and say the 99 percent have to conform to what the 1 percent think it should mean
vincent, I didn't realize wittgenstein had already said what I said, but I am happy to follow in his footsteps. And thanks for the www info, that is interesting an helpful. and you are correct about the painting. I actually thought if anyone was to recognize it, it would be you.
ReplyDeletelukiosaurs, hello friend.
dude, like anybody can know what is real
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm dubious about your suggestion that the majority are right and the dictionary is wrong if it disagrees.
ReplyDeleteDictionaries, like books of grammar, are important for recording historical meanings, and trying in this way to maintain consistency. Historical meanings, even when they clash with today's, may survive in old texts, or even the current usages of older people who grew up with certain meanings.
Political correctness is one way that new meanings are co-opted into existence, or previously acceptable words and meanings are outlawed.
Ignorance is also a way that traditional meanings (perhaps I should say usages) are walked over and muddied out of recognition.
The beauty of the Oxford English Dictionary, available on the Web by subscription only (but I can access it by putting in my public library membership no.)is the enormous amount of research that has gone in to the history of each word.
Take "nice":
Of a person: foolish, silly, simple; ignorant. (obsolete)
Of an action, utterance, etc.: displaying foolishness or silliness; absurd, senseless. (obsolete)
Of conduct, behaviour, etc.: characterized by or encouraging wantonness or lasciviousness. (obsolete)
Of a person: finely dressed, elegant. (obsolete)
Precise or particular in matters of reputation or conduct; scrupulous, punctilious. (Now rare.)
Fastidious, fussy, difficult to please, esp. with regard to food or cleanliness; of refined or dainty tastes.
Refined, cultured; associated with polite society.
Fastidious in matters of literary taste or style. Obs.
Respectable, virtuous, decent.
Of a topic of conversation, mode of conduct, etc.: in good taste, appropriate, proper. Usu. in negative contexts.
And so it goes on, till we come to the modern uses.
There is nothing prescriptivist in this, but if usage changes too rapidly, neither dictionaries of the traditional kind nor most people will be able to keep up.
this is the coolest blog ever, seriously i am not even saying that because i am reading it right now.
ReplyDeletebut there are older blogs, doi
ReplyDelete