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Except it's nothing more than American slang, plain and simple. You may not believe that words have meanings, but I actually put value into semiotics and seman

Except it's nothing more than American slang, plain and simple. You may not believe that words have meanings, but I actually put value into semiotics and semantics.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
I do believe that words have meanings. I just don't believe that they have cast-in-concrete, good-for-the-rest-of-time, works-in-all-societies meanings. OK, it's American slang. We're talking about an American college here, and I suspect that the majority of the people in the conversation are Americans. That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". It's always good to have these terms discussed and clarified.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    > This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? I believe (though I do not have the data to prove) that the majority of people on this site are in the U.S. (Not just in this conversation, on this site.) It therefore seems appropriate that U.S. definitions be accepted. (Other definitions should also be accepted/tolerated, of course, but the U.S. definitions should always be accepted - not because "it's the US!", but because those terms are used by the majority of the people here.) vezzy-fnord has been complaining about the use of the U.S. term in this conversation. If he/she wants to say that the term may not be understood by others who are not in the U.S., that's fine. But vezzy-fnord's stance has been more that our use of the term is wrong. I disagree with that position - language is defined by usage, after all. [Edit: I mean that the proper definition of a word on HN would be how that word is normally used by the majority of people on HN, not how it would be normally used by the majority of people in the world. Again, this is not intended to be saying that the U.S. definition is the only right one for HN - we should accept other peoples' usage as well. But telling the majority that their use of the term is incorrect... well, I think at best it's wasting a lot of peoples' time.] > Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". Thanks to our media's simple-minded casting of everything as "liberal vs. conservative", yes, pretty much everyone in the U.S. has that understanding. (Fewer people seem to have the understanding of "liberal" to mean "not illiberal, in favor of personal liberty". I wish it were otherwise.)
xlm1717 11y ago
>That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning. Which is, incidentally, a very liberal (using the American connotation of the word) thing to do.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Wrong. The U.S. definition is the non-standard one, unless you consider it to also be the world. No other country defines "liberal" as anything similar.

Except it's nothing more than American slang, plain and simple. You may not believe that words have meanings, but I actually put value into semiotics and semantics.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago

I do believe that words have meanings. I just don't believe that they have cast-in-concrete, good-for-the-rest-of-time, works-in-all-societies meanings. OK, it's American slang. We're talking about an American college here, and I suspect that the majority of the people in the conversation are Americans. That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning.

chris_wot 11y ago
This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". It's always good to have these terms discussed and clarified.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  > This is a pretty international website, I'd like to understand why you believe that mostly those in the U.S. are interested and involved in the discussion of this issue? I believe (though I do not have the data to prove) that the majority of people on this site are in the U.S. (Not just in this conversation, on this site.) It therefore seems appropriate that U.S. definitions be accepted. (Other definitions should also be accepted/tolerated, of course, but the U.S. definitions should always be accepted - not because "it's the US!", but because those terms are used by the majority of the people here.) vezzy-fnord has been complaining about the use of the U.S. term in this conversation. If he/she wants to say that the term may not be understood by others who are not in the U.S., that's fine. But vezzy-fnord's stance has been more that our use of the term is wrong. I disagree with that position - language is defined by usage, after all. [Edit: I mean that the proper definition of a word on HN would be how that word is normally used by the majority of people on HN, not how it would be normally used by the majority of people in the world. Again, this is not intended to be saying that the U.S. definition is the only right one for HN - we should accept other peoples' usage as well. But telling the majority that their use of the term is incorrect... well, I think at best it's wasting a lot of peoples' time.] > Besides, you assume that everyone in the U.S. have the same understanding of the word "liberal". Thanks to our media's simple-minded casting of everything as "liberal vs. conservative", yes, pretty much everyone in the U.S. has that understanding. (Fewer people seem to have the understanding of "liberal" to mean "not illiberal, in favor of personal liberty". I wish it were otherwise.)

xlm1717 11y ago

>That means that you are the one insisting on using words in ways that are not the standard meaning. Which is, incidentally, a very liberal (using the American connotation of the word) thing to do.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Wrong. The U.S. definition is the non-standard one, unless you consider it to also be the world. No other country defines "liberal" as anything similar.