The Generalist

Tag: language

Total 6 Posts

Weekly Word: Polysemy

I just discovered this one a short time ago while working on an article about language. Here’s the definition based on the Wikipedia entry: Polysemy: the capacity for a sign, word, or phrase to have multiple related meanings. It is usually regarded as distinct from homonymy, in which the multiple

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The idea of ‘Consent’

This is a just pet-peeve of mine. I sometimes hear arguments regarding the ‘consent’ clause of the Declaration of Independence that seem to imply that one must consent to a just government and from that follows the idea that anything goes as long as one consents. I have to weigh

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Beginner’s Doublespeak: Equivocations

Doublespeak is a type of logical fallacy known as equivocation. Equivocation is the use in a logical argument of a word that has two or more distinct meanings. The purpose of using Doublespeak is to evade real debate by confusing or obfuscating. In any spoken language, words naturally change over

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