Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Spanish Linguistics v. Rhetoric

Spanish Linguistics:

Rule #1: Words are arbitrary sounds chosen to stand for occasionally ambiguous meanings.

Rhetoric:

See pages 817-827 of Locke's treatise on why words don't convey meaning perfectly (hint: because they're arbitrary sounds chosen to stand for occasionally ambiguous meanings).

Empirically, Lingusitics > Rhetoric in this case, because it took me much less time to take notes over the first reading.

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