Defining Semantics
I gently suggest all here avoid semantic argument if possible.
I have no objection to pedantry, for I am a pedant myself, but I do wish to avoid arguments were there is no matter at stake, only a difference of preference of how to express it.
As a general rule, in the comments here, each man of good will may use both literal and figurative speech, or define his terms for the sake of clarification, each man as he sees fit, provided only political correctness and other forms of deception are not practiced.
I have no objection if someone asks me to define my terms, or to ask for a clarification, if my meaning is not being carried by the words I use.
Nor to I mind overly polite speech as opposed to overly blunt speech. Either one is fine with me, provided we avoid obscenities.
To ask me to use different words, however, to say the same thing, due to preferences of politics, rhetoric, or aesthetics, I consider illegitimate, and will politely decline.
My objection to semantic arguments is that they act to obscure rather than clarify, and they are based on arbitrary preferences rather than any honest disagreement of opinion.
If you change the label on a tin of peaches, it does not change what is in the tin. The taste, color, consistency of the fruit is the same.
As long as the label change is not an attempt to deceive, to mislabel, to call peaches medical waste or somesuch, there is no point to dispute such things.
In most case, a semantic argument is a power play, an attempt by one guy to force the other guy to adopt his jargon as an act of dominance and submission.
And I have never once been privy to an honest semantic argument. Those I have heard or overheard have always been rhetorical, that is, an attempt to force someone to adopt a euphemism or a sneer-term rather than to speak frankly.
Moreover, by definition, such arguments are pointless: if you convince me that a stop light is crimson rather than scarlet, it is still a violation of the traffic laws to run a motorcar through it.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
