Great short piece. This is really cool for etymology nerds too, about how ancient Greeks saw color, and why it was almost certainly not like we see it today.
Thank you Darius. That was a very informative article. I'm not sure I quite follow its argument, but it had really great information in it.
I'm still confused as to how the category of saliency disproves our earlier notion of how color developed. They say no one today believes there was a time when colors were 'not yet' perceived, and that it's really a matter of saliency. The color was there for them, but they noticed something else about it instead, not hue but lightness or saturation. But to what extent is the subjective experience of color still "there" if it doesn't capture your attention?
My children all know that etymology online is one of my favorite websites. They all know too that if they ask me to define a word they will also get the etymology thrown at them as well. Hardly a day goes by when I'm not making one or another of them groan as I read etymologies at them. It's so satisfying to dig down at the roots of words.
A great way to learn language down to the bones. I like etymonline. I always have the browser extension ready. I wish it were more comprehensive, with more concrete examples referenced. But that's a difficult task.
What is it we get when our words are freed from their immediate context? You suggest a sense of their history and primitive use, that helps us renew our relationship to them. That's obviously true as far as it goes. But maybe this is just one example of what happens, if you will allow me to wax continental, when instrumentality is suspended. We can get "purposiveness without purpose," Dasein in Van Gogh peasant shoes, defamiliarization. It's not limited to words or etymology. Lots of things can happen when things stop being a means to an end, and the will takes a break. Ruins, for instance.
I'm not sure I understand the second part of your comment. What we get, when words are freed from their immediate context, and here I take what you're saying to mean something like, When language is altered, depends on the manner in which it's altered. If there's no underlying sense of continuity with tradition, then you get disintegration and confusion. The debate around whether a man can be a woman is an example of this. Linguistically, it's based on the premise that words can mean whatever we want them to mean, and can be edited without limitation. This seems like an abuse of language. A more sophisticated development of language would incorporate the old meaning into the new in a way that preserves the old while making it new, thereby refreshing and renewing language.
LOL this is a perfect misunderstanding--you have a Burkean conception of the evolution of language, and I am trying to apply a basically Kantian idea to the same phenomenon. My point, which I admit was too cryptic, is that your example of using words in a different context could be seen as another instance of the aesthetic as conceived by Kant and his epigones (de-instrumentalization). He would have a different take on what is basically the same phenomenon (it's neat and cool to become aware of words qua words).
In any case, not your tradition! Or rather, a misunderstanding 200 years in the making. Romanticism divided by the English channel.
As for the trans issue, I doubt we disagree at all on this. But that is more a matter of bureaucrats allying with leftists to force through vocabulary changes that are not happening fast enough for them. Which is foolish. The left already introduced terms that my kids use naturally (butch/femme) to describe gender as a performance and a construct. It works perfectly well! Most dudes are butch but some are femme and so with women. It accords with lived experience and passes the Burkean test. But the whole effort to go after the sex binary was deluded and insane, more like French Revolutionaries renaming God the Deity.
I'll have to brush up on my Critiques. I agree with you that the example I gave is a political one, a deliberate attempt to change language. The analogy to the French Revolutionaries is a good one (I believe they had a festival of worship for Reason, too). The way I was originally thinking of it was in the literary sense. I have in mind Barfield's excellent passage in Poetic Diction where he traces the change in the word "ruin" through a long lineage of English writers.
Great short piece. This is really cool for etymology nerds too, about how ancient Greeks saw color, and why it was almost certainly not like we see it today.
https://aeon.co/essays/can-we-hope-to-understand-how-the-greeks-saw-their-world
Thank you Darius. That was a very informative article. I'm not sure I quite follow its argument, but it had really great information in it.
I'm still confused as to how the category of saliency disproves our earlier notion of how color developed. They say no one today believes there was a time when colors were 'not yet' perceived, and that it's really a matter of saliency. The color was there for them, but they noticed something else about it instead, not hue but lightness or saturation. But to what extent is the subjective experience of color still "there" if it doesn't capture your attention?
Anyway, thanks for the link!
My children all know that etymology online is one of my favorite websites. They all know too that if they ask me to define a word they will also get the etymology thrown at them as well. Hardly a day goes by when I'm not making one or another of them groan as I read etymologies at them. It's so satisfying to dig down at the roots of words.
A great way to learn language down to the bones. I like etymonline. I always have the browser extension ready. I wish it were more comprehensive, with more concrete examples referenced. But that's a difficult task.
Wonderful essay. "The wind's eye . . ." The bit about the etymology of "window" is fascinating.
Barfield uses it, much like Gorrie does in his quote, to imagine the original teutonic people who first settled down and started making houses.
Loved this, and loved the examples you cited. I did not know that about "window".
Thank you Joffre. There's a lot of gems like that in Barfields History in English Words
What is it we get when our words are freed from their immediate context? You suggest a sense of their history and primitive use, that helps us renew our relationship to them. That's obviously true as far as it goes. But maybe this is just one example of what happens, if you will allow me to wax continental, when instrumentality is suspended. We can get "purposiveness without purpose," Dasein in Van Gogh peasant shoes, defamiliarization. It's not limited to words or etymology. Lots of things can happen when things stop being a means to an end, and the will takes a break. Ruins, for instance.
I'm not sure I understand the second part of your comment. What we get, when words are freed from their immediate context, and here I take what you're saying to mean something like, When language is altered, depends on the manner in which it's altered. If there's no underlying sense of continuity with tradition, then you get disintegration and confusion. The debate around whether a man can be a woman is an example of this. Linguistically, it's based on the premise that words can mean whatever we want them to mean, and can be edited without limitation. This seems like an abuse of language. A more sophisticated development of language would incorporate the old meaning into the new in a way that preserves the old while making it new, thereby refreshing and renewing language.
LOL this is a perfect misunderstanding--you have a Burkean conception of the evolution of language, and I am trying to apply a basically Kantian idea to the same phenomenon. My point, which I admit was too cryptic, is that your example of using words in a different context could be seen as another instance of the aesthetic as conceived by Kant and his epigones (de-instrumentalization). He would have a different take on what is basically the same phenomenon (it's neat and cool to become aware of words qua words).
In any case, not your tradition! Or rather, a misunderstanding 200 years in the making. Romanticism divided by the English channel.
As for the trans issue, I doubt we disagree at all on this. But that is more a matter of bureaucrats allying with leftists to force through vocabulary changes that are not happening fast enough for them. Which is foolish. The left already introduced terms that my kids use naturally (butch/femme) to describe gender as a performance and a construct. It works perfectly well! Most dudes are butch but some are femme and so with women. It accords with lived experience and passes the Burkean test. But the whole effort to go after the sex binary was deluded and insane, more like French Revolutionaries renaming God the Deity.
I'll have to brush up on my Critiques. I agree with you that the example I gave is a political one, a deliberate attempt to change language. The analogy to the French Revolutionaries is a good one (I believe they had a festival of worship for Reason, too). The way I was originally thinking of it was in the literary sense. I have in mind Barfield's excellent passage in Poetic Diction where he traces the change in the word "ruin" through a long lineage of English writers.