3 ms·

Nit Pet Peeve: Confusing sapience and sentience.

by RcouF1uZ4gsC 3y ago

colechristensen 3y ago
I'm starting to doubt the Internet nitpickers' distinction and definition of the two.
- DougMerritt 3y ago
  Their distinction follows dictionaries that I've looked at, but common usage is clearly diverging from that. It's unclear to me at what point we should stop saying that lots of people are using words incorrectly, and start saying that lots of dictionaries are sticking with outmoded definitions, but looking at the past, transitions certainly occur sometimes.
  - greiskul 3y ago
    There are lots of people that have this view that there is "objectively correct" language, and that you can find it in grammar books and dictionaries. Any linguist worth their salt knows that is a completely outdated and classist way of studying language. Dictionaries are supposed to be updated acording to how people use language, not people be "corrected" to try to follow the dictionary. While language learners speak a language "wrong", any group of native language speakers has rights of ownership of their language as any other group, and as long as they are communicating in a way that they can understand each other, they are never wrong.
    - DougMerritt 3y ago
      As an avocational linguist I am sympathetic to all of that, but effective communication requires a large degree of mutual understanding of words, so it's not like anything goes, either; plus most people have not studied linguistics and do believe in "correct language" (prescriptive) and do not hesitate to correct people who use "incorrect language" -- so it's a bit complicated culturally, if not from the stance of descriptive linguistics. In this particular case, there's no danger of misunderstanding, so I agree that this was just a nitpick about dictionary definitions versus a fairly common usage.
Scaevolus 3y ago
On the internet, the problem is rarely dogs getting up to mischief.
- rocketbop 3y ago
  That’s a nice line but could you tell me what it means?
  - ketzo 3y ago
    We consider many animals to be "sentient" -- we recognize that they are to some degree conscious, in this case meaning that they have the capability to sense, perceive their world, and have some kind of emotion about the things they perceive "Sapience" on the other hand, is essentially "human-level intelligence, consciousness, and self-awareness" (from homo sapiens)
  - willturman 3y ago
    I took it as a tongue in cheek reference to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
- rossdavidh 3y ago
  ...so far.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  That's exactly what a dog would say.

Nit Pet Peeve: Confusing sapience and sentience.

colechristensen 3y ago

I'm starting to doubt the Internet nitpickers' distinction and definition of the two.

DougMerritt 3y ago
Their distinction follows dictionaries that I've looked at, but common usage is clearly diverging from that. It's unclear to me at what point we should stop saying that lots of people are using words incorrectly, and start saying that lots of dictionaries are sticking with outmoded definitions, but looking at the past, transitions certainly occur sometimes.
- greiskul 3y ago
  There are lots of people that have this view that there is "objectively correct" language, and that you can find it in grammar books and dictionaries. Any linguist worth their salt knows that is a completely outdated and classist way of studying language. Dictionaries are supposed to be updated acording to how people use language, not people be "corrected" to try to follow the dictionary. While language learners speak a language "wrong", any group of native language speakers has rights of ownership of their language as any other group, and as long as they are communicating in a way that they can understand each other, they are never wrong.
  - DougMerritt 3y ago
    As an avocational linguist I am sympathetic to all of that, but effective communication requires a large degree of mutual understanding of words, so it's not like anything goes, either; plus most people have not studied linguistics and do believe in "correct language" (prescriptive) and do not hesitate to correct people who use "incorrect language" -- so it's a bit complicated culturally, if not from the stance of descriptive linguistics. In this particular case, there's no danger of misunderstanding, so I agree that this was just a nitpick about dictionary definitions versus a fairly common usage.

Scaevolus 3y ago

On the internet, the problem is rarely dogs getting up to mischief.

rocketbop 3y ago
That’s a nice line but could you tell me what it means?
- ketzo 3y ago
  We consider many animals to be "sentient" -- we recognize that they are to some degree conscious, in this case meaning that they have the capability to sense, perceive their world, and have some kind of emotion about the things they perceive "Sapience" on the other hand, is essentially "human-level intelligence, consciousness, and self-awareness" (from homo sapiens)
- willturman 3y ago
  I took it as a tongue in cheek reference to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_you%27re_a_dog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...
rossdavidh 3y ago
...so far.
qingcharles 3y ago
That's exactly what a dog would say.