While I think the grandparent is focussed on a non-issue (the two phrases offered are obviously metonymic, not literal), I have to note that this is a much stro

While I think the grandparent is focussed on a non-issue (the two phrases offered are obviously metonymic, not literal), I have to note that this is a much stronger claim than you might gather from a glib programming analogy made by an armchair philosopher. Linguistic relativity is a thing [1], but statements like this widely overstate the extent to which language molds cognition. More importantly, though, I don't think the notion is relevant to the discussion at hand. We're not talking about alternative phrasings of the same idea, but different ideas entirely: yes and no. That different ideas expressed differently carry different semantic payloads is hardly a controversial assertion. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity