Who or what has the authority to decide and define the meanings of words and how they should be used?

Should it be individual people who are ‘experts’ in the field to which the language they are defining regards?

Should it be groups and individuals who wield the most political authority?

Should it be history that defines the meaning of words? i.e. we should use the earliest recorded meaning.

Should the meaning of a word be that which is most widely used?

ER.....not sure I understand, generally I just use a Dictionary?!

It doesn't matter as long as those to whom we are communicating know what we mean by the words.

Try making up a word to describe something (adjectives are a good place to start) and see if people know what you mean.

I'm guessing that as the question has arisen on this forum it's going to be about the perennial Wicca debate, to which my own opinion is "can't we talk about something more interesting".

After all, there are lots of people who call themselves 'intelligent', 'wise', 'clever' and 'funny', regardless of my opinion of them

The dictionaries enable us to check on meanings but the compilers don't invent, they just write down what is or was in use and the variety of meanings pertinent to a given word.
Words obviously change a great deal in meaning and use and new words come and go all the time. I can't see that it's much use using a word in general conversation that nobody is going to understand or to use a word in another way from that which is generally accepted. Therefore i think that the language evolves naturally and we just keep pace with it. The majority decides sort of thing.

It's a sorta consensus thing. If you carry enough clout within your professional elite, and write a definitive work carrying the definition that you've decided on, then you'll be deferred to for the next fifty years or so.

But definitive works tend to be reactive, not prescriptive, in terms of jargon.
If you want to amend the meaning of a word, or create a new one, there are precedents. To amend the meaning of a word, write a poem or work of fiction where you use the word to mean what you want it to mean. You may need to add a footnote or two, or slip a tenner to the journos so they can explain it.

There was that guy who was bet that he couldn't add a new word to the English Language. I can't remember who it was, but I remember that it was in Dublin, and the word was to be "quiz". He paid an army of idlers to chalk the word on every blank wall in Dublin, overnight. Next morning everyone was saying "quiz?" - so it worked.

If you're talking about defining Pagan terms, good luck with that.

"Who or what has the authority to decide and define the meanings of words and how they should be used?"

Easy. Foul Ole Ron.

"Millenium hand and prawn."

I forgot to say in my first post that I started this topic because of a little argument between Jape and Woozle in which Jape stated in an authoritative manner what a witch was and Woozle challenged him.

"Shrimp", surely?

Tas has a thing for prawns.

You're right - it IS shrimp! Must be my obsession kicking in again - you see, I haven't quite mastered speaking Shrimp - yet.

"Give me the Moonlight, give me the Stars"




Frankie Prawn.

Arrest that man!

I much prefer waking up to the prawn chorus!

Arrest that Woman!

Ah, now you tell me.
Not wishing to stir up strife again I have an overly simple example which just explains MY perspective on the idea of terms and their use IN GENERAL.
Dog. The word dog tells you it has four legs, a waggy tail and teeth. It doesn’t tell you size, ferocity, coat, or colour but everyone knows and uses the term dog in a generic sense - I got savaged by a dog rather than I got savaged by a marema for instance. Nobody will know what a marema is so you might as well use ‘dog’ otherwise they might think it is a type of fish for example.
When necessary we use more refined terms, shitzu, spaniel, dalmatian etc.
If we didn’t have the more refined terms life would be a little more complicated for dog breeders than it is at the moment. Dog breeders refine the terms even further but here we get into the realms of fields of expertise. However despite this, there will always be a reputable source which you can consult to determine what a given term means. This is always the case as far as I know. Just look at computer jargon. Ever evolving but always specifically defined. If somebody invents a new breed of dog, they will give it a new name. People will learn to associate that particular description of dog with the new name and begin to use it. Without that pretty fundamental description you’re not going to get far.
It’s not going to get you anywhere in polite society if you start using the word corgi to refer to a wolf just because you think it’s a good idea or redefine the word dog because you don’t agree with the original definition. People need firm points and concrete terms and what most people use becomes the accepted rule imo. Nobody in their right mind would dispute the definition of dog.
I’m hesitant to bring up the word witch again but the test I would imagine is very simple, just ask everyone what they think a witch is. If you get a consistent majority then that is what a witch is. The minority might be variations but will in any case be used less than the term the majority of users use… sort of thing. One small valley with a couple of witches in it does not represent the world and can therefore imextremelyho not influence the lexicon in the slightest no matter how hard it tries unless the whole valley, as a unit, agrees and start to use the term in the wide world. It then in any case has still to be accepted by the wider world otherwise it will remain in the realms of the cliquey.
Until such time as there is a world pagan authority which defines a 'real witch' in a certain way passively acceptable to a majority I can’t see that discussing what real witchcraft is has much validity. It’s like saying that a shepherd dog is a real dog but a yorkie isn’t

And remember to send the Officer with the big truncheon!


And Woozle - "Dog. The word dog tells you it has four legs, a waggy tail and teeth."
Not here in Glasgow it doesn't! It's an extremely derogatory name for an ugly woman.

So maybe that's another one to add to the discussion? The fact that for some weird reason we refer to folk as various animals?

Bitchy = catty
A strong man is a lion, or a tiger in bed.
An ugly woman is a dog or a hound.
A fat person = an elephant or a hippo.
A timid person = a mouse.

OK, they are all metaphors, but why animal ones?

BTW, I dread this turning into another "What makes a Witch" etc!

Yes Please Please lets keep this in general terms.

The equating people with animals goes back probably thousands of years. Old English names are a good example (these obviously don't go back thousands of years!) - Wulfric = power of the wolf. Deorwine = either friend of beasts or friend of deer, and so on. None of them derogratory admittedly but I would lay money on there being derogratory nicknames that may not have been recorded.

Okay, let's muddy the water even further - this sounds like one of Wittgentstein's "Language games"; i.e. the point that words only have specific meanings within particular groups of people who use them.
On a simple level - "Lid"; which to many will mean straightforwardly the thing that you have to prise off a jar of marmalade, in other company may mean a motorcycle (or pikeman's) helmet, or, for the fans of the fabulous furry freakbrothers, a quantity of cannabis. The meaning depends on the context where it is used, and how it is understood. If I'm talking to a bunch of bikers about a "lid", and this is a term that they use, I don't have to explain that I'm not talking about the marmalade jar.
Religious terms are a lot less straightforward - even with comparatively monolithic traditions - what does "being a Christian" mean? Well, you can bet that The Pope, Oral Roberts, John Yongi-Cho, and Ian Paisley all have different (indeed often opposing answers - yet how often do non-Christians lump em all together). More so for Pagans - when there is constant bickering about terminology, even within specific traditions; what is a witch? Well one lot of witches say it's this, some say it's that.
Paganism is full of very small language games - and the point is that we can play as many or as few as we want - but we have to play by the inherent rules, and can't stamp our feet when other people don't want to (that's not a dig at anyone).

To sum, as the man said "If a lion were to speak, we could not understand him" (because a lion's language game will be different to ours).

I'm sure that hasn't helped....

I could come back at that by suggesting that maaaaany moons ago if you asked someone what the word "black" meant you would (in relation to race...) have gotten a whole LIST of "traits" that were considerd by the majority to discribe an entire race of peoples. The definition of the majority, does not always "define" a "people". Now granted thats a very extreme example and I am not for one moment suggesting that Witches are a "race". But.. you get what Im driving at

[quote=Xalle,Jun 3 2008, 10:17 PM]
[quote]ow granted thats a very extreme example and I am not for one moment suggesting that Witches are a "race". But.. you get what Im driving at

[/quote]

I think so. Wtches define what 'witch' is, others just say what they think it is.
The fact that a pack of curs yaps nonsense around the doors of a chipshop while they dribble at the smells, doesn't mean they are talking sense, able to cook or have the currency.

Yus!

I'm sure someone will eventually bring it up

I just wanted to compare your list of metaphors to the ones that I've heard:

Brave as a Lion
A strong person= an Ox
An ugly woman =Pig. Calling a man a Pig = Pervert. Pig= untidy person
A fat person = Hog ,cow
Dog= a 'lowlife'

I wonder what the animals think of us!! Or the Prawns even

I’m happy to see that someone brought up Wittgenstein, we looked at him briefly in philosophy although we were unable to go into much detail due to time constraints.

What little of Wittgenstein I did study I liked, I found the idea of the language games appealing. It also makes me appreciate the futility of some arguments and discussions as the parties involved are not ‘in the same game’. I think an example of this would be a discussion between mr.ppp and me in which we both used the word ‘faith’ but the word had different meanings for each of us; we are saying the same words but speaking a different language.

I have noticed that the meaning of words change with experience and learning. For me the word atheist has many different meanings (I blame philosophy), for example that for some body to tell me that they’re an atheist gives me so little information they might as well not tell me anything, I do not know what the word atheist means to the individual using the word.

funny though, whole lives are spent in mutual agreement of a concept serving quite well; I love you, that's up and that's down, stick your mitt in the fire and it hurts, etc etc
serving for transactional as well as relational correspondence
emotion as well as form
and the complicated meme conveyed is transported by the willingness to agree as much as the information

see? you all understood me didnya?
apart from the yappers of course

But surely, maybe this is a bit simplistic, but wouldn't a dictionary answer you doubts on atheist? The onus, if someone uses the term differently from the standard definition, should be on him or her explaining the difference surely otherwise nobody is going to understand anything.

Who’s to say the dictionary has it right?

What is the standard definition?

I think may people are unaware that the word atheist (and atheism) can have more then one meaning and so do not feel the need to explain what they mean.

Two meanings of atheism that I have found people commonly use are:

- They do not believe in gods (the word atheism comes form the Greek atheos meaning ‘no gods’). but do they not believe in the existence of gods or do they believe that gods exist but do not believe in worshipping them?

- They have no religion.

The dictionary just records the most common usage of a word.

The standard definition in the Oxford Dictionary is that atheism "is the belief or theory that God does not exist".

But if you look at a lot of atheist forums the overwhelming majority seem to describe atheism as the non-belief in all supernatural phenomena, but again there are degrees of non-belief.

Actually I think FCM has a good point. For example;



Fine... but it doesnt tell you what they DO believe. What I mean is. The term Athiest, states "non-believer in gods" ok, so, someone who has considered that thought, decides there is no gods and why... but everyone comes from their own experience, so the WHY is different for everyone which means "athiest" means something a little differnt to every person, its about interpretation.

FCM's example of the word faith is an excellent one, its one word, but it can mean very different things to different people. I dont think its simplistic at all.

However, I think that might be a slightly different topic?

There are also the problems of how you define the word god. You could be an atheist i.e. do not believe in gods, but you could also be an animist or believe in and worship nature spirits or practice ancestor worship etc.

*nods* yep

Before we studied religious language in philosophy I couldn’t quite get my head around how you could be both and atheist and a witch. To me atheism meant the rejection of both religion and supernatural/magical.

now being totally paranoidabout people reading my words wrong and just in case FCM whos e posts i almost allways agree with interpreted the same as Xalle in this case, i meant:

but surely comma, maybe this is a bit simplistic, comma and NOT
but surely maybe this is a bit simplistic. I INTENDED you to underestand that MY words were simplistic.

Jape, an erudite and interesting post back there.
However, surely the memes' existence (to say nothing of relevance, and hence continuation AS memes) is dependant on zietgeist?

From Wiki:

Atheism, as an explicit position, either affirms the nonexistence of gods[1] or rejects theism.[2] When defined more broadly, atheism is the absence of belief in deities,[3] alternatively called nontheism.[4] Although atheism is often equated with irreligion, some religious philosophies, such as Jainism, secular theology and some varieties of Buddhism such as Theravada do not include belief in a personal god as a tenet of the religion.

Depends what the meme is. A song going around and around in your head which you then pass on to someone else has a limited lifespan. The idea of freedom has a very long lifespan, although it may mutate from the original idea of what freedom meant or what each individual means by it but the meme does survive. The fashion memes are very obviously dependent on zeitgeist.

I just discovered this site, with a positive plethora (!) of invented words.

http://www.seiyaku.com/humour/english/new-words.html

Yep, that's it, the word I've always been looking for!

REINTARNATION!

Usually '‘experts’ in the field' (having done my MA in Language & Communication Research at Cardiff centre for that task) study the sociolinguistic use of words and write about them. They don't make the words or definitions up out of thin air.

I'm sure if you sent an e-mail to Oxford English they could explain the process to you.

Often youth push the boundaries of acceptable language use, such as the schism between 'nigger' (bad/socially unacceptable word) and 'nigga' (accepted in-term for both black and white 'brothers' in certain social groups in North America).

It's a fascinating topic and boils down to group (age/race/geographic/religious) lexicon - the agreed meaning of words.

The important thing to remember is that meaning always shifts and will continue to do so through time and social group. 'Gay', 'queer', 'queen', 'hot', 'bad', 'wicked', 'ken' are just a few that spring to mind.

I currently work as a sign language researcher helping to compile the first ever dictionary of Amarenga y'Ikinyarwanda (AKR/Rwandan Sign Language) and we are going through the process at the moment of researching the use of signs and sign linguistics across the country. In order to produce a semi-standardised dictionary we have to seriously discuss and examine national variation in language. It's a fascinating process and one I'd only read about going wrong in the past because the 'experts' waded in and enforced their opinions. I think this time, grass-roots-up, we're doing it the right way

brilliant

Any other Edward Lear fans in the house?

Yo!

Love it! I'm the proud sufferer of occasional phonesia and telecrastination.

Have you read the puns page on that website. Well I havent laffed like that for a while. Here is what I mean:-

One neutron
A neutron goes into a bar and asks the bartender, "How much for a beer?" The bartender replies, "For you, no charge."


Chess enthusiasts
A group of chess enthusiasts had checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse.

"But why?" they asked, as they moved off.

"Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

Ooh Thin - I just LOVE Lear - and especially reading about how loyal Gonorrhoea was to him.

Oopsy! Wrong Lear! Silly me!

I shall climb hurriedly back into the branches of my Crumpetty Tree and hide my shame.

Absolutely right. . More bunnies. And a cos you deserve one.

Love it!

Thin, hun, you should try living (or working with teenagers ). Just as soon as you think you understand what they're saying, they come up with another one! Sick and pure seem to be the latest. Which means, since I've sussed them, I'm already out of date!

Things just seem to catch on, and nobody but those who were in on the original conversation know why. But the next day, a few repeat it, then a few more, and it spreads.I credit my mate with a few 'Zena-isms' which are now current... Mornin' as an all-purpose greeting, and Bargain! which she was saying a good 10 years ago.