Talk:How do I say?

Wordbook Entries Discussion
(mooved from: "Headside: Talk", http://anglish.wikicities.com/wiki/Talk:Headside )

Let's talk here about specific wordbook entries any of us REALLY mislike so we can sort it out here (instead of randomly changing the articles/entries).

ADDENDUM: As this page seems like it is going to ever grow in size; and, seeing as listing complaints about individual entries on the relevant pages doesn't seem to be working (hencethis section), I am now mooving this page to one of its own. BryanAJParry 15:38, 2 Jan 2006 (UTC)

JAW = MOUTH I'm sorry, but no. Maybe I can be convinced otherwise, but if you ask me, this falls distinctly into the camp of stretching a word's meaning too far. In fact, you and I, Joe, have complained to each other how "mad" has lost the keenness of its meaning to a degree by use of it being overextended to mean "angry". Well, to say jaw means mouth is frankly an even more gross over-extension of meaning. :) Feel free to disagree. BryanAJParry 01:47, 25 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree; I think it would disadvantage the language if we just let meanings swallow eachother up by culling the number of words. Do we talk about the jaw of a cave? A snail has a mouth, but does it have jaws? I think we need to deal proporly with the fact that sometimes there is no good Anglo-Saxon word for a concept. We might also grudgingly admit that Jaw is a perfectly nice word; For all I knew it was Anglo-Saxon. How we deal with it is the skill behind the making of the language, that I thing we need to flesh out.


 * Basically, the question of whether to keep words such as "jaw" goes hand in hand with whether is it the aesthetic or the pedantic consequences of Hastings you wish to undo.


 * I like a challenge, and if we can come up with or find natural replacements for words like Jaw, that would be brilliant, however bear in mind that it is a *mammoth* task of good judgement to do so to the extent that a newspaper article could be written in Anglish and understood by a learned reader unversed in it. ~Inkstersco 25 Dec


 * Interestingly, according to etymonline.com, "jaw" replaced the word "cheek" in that sense. If we WERE gonna get rid of jaw, saying "chek" would make more sense than "mouth", as both jaw and cheek refer to the side part of the face. BryanAJParry 15:46, 26 Dec 2005 (UTC)

COLOUR = HUE

A colour is hue plus shade plus degree of saturation plus some other stuff. Similar to the Jaw\Mouth thing, in art, colour and hue are two different things. The language would be prettier but less useful if these words were fused. I suggest hueshade for colour. Colour, is, pretty much, the shade of a hue. ~Inkstersco, 25 Dec

ANIMAL = WIGHT Argh! We've talked about this before, Joe. :D Wight, in English, is almost the exact same thing as "creature". Not animal. We could change the meaning to animal, but why? Wight means creature in English, always has. The word that animal replaced is deor 'deer'. Now, maybe shifting the meaning of deer back to animal would be too much, but we COULD do it because the ancient word for Deer heorot also still exists: HART. In other words, the words for creature, animal, deer (respectively) in Old English- wight, deer, hart- still exist. So I can't altogether say I'm pleased that we ought to be shifting the meaning of wight. Why not just say wight means creature (which is true), and either a. leave animal alone, or b. replace it with deer, and bring back to life ailing hart (which also means deer)? BryanAJParry 22:48, 28 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * A word so scarcely used as Wight consequently has its meaning vaguened, and the same goes for Hart. In a project like this, either we invent words, or accept that most of the time we will not find perfect synonyms. We're going to have a heck of a time finding another natural, remotely obvious word for "animal". We were lucky enough to find Wight, which was hardly obvious. I don't think anyone nowadays has a particularly clear idea of what "wight" means, so it doesn't seem propor to talk about whether it currently means Creature or Animal. The word's death has given it vagueness. Wight, seems the best existing Anglo-Saxon word for animal. I'd love to hear a better one, because Wight is aurally confusing, but I don't think there is one. ~Inkstersco 25, dec


 * I have to disagree quite strongly. Wight means/meant creature. Creature is a forran word. So if we replace it with wight, then we have replaced an Englandish word with its English synonym. Problem with this: we still have animal which is a forran word. Alternative solution (namely yours): We DON'T replace creature with its synonym wight, and arbitrarily alter its meaning to animal. Now we still have one forran word (namely creature), but also have just altered the meaning of an English word and as such have made it even harder to gain ground. I think your stance PLAINLY is more disadvantaged than mine. BryanAJParry 15:45, 30 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * But the difference in modern usage between Creature and Animal no longer hinges on one maybe meaning plant also. In truth, the only real difference between Creature and Animal is that one refers more to a scientific kingdom, and the other has connotations of barbarism. It is almost unheard of for a modern English speaker to use Creature to to mean Organism. ~Inkstersco Dec 31 2005


 * Not sure I agree with you there. If I get you right, you are saying abolish "creature" and "animal", replace both with "wight"? Interesting, but I don't like it simply because animal (in modern, current, non-technical usage) basically excludes insects, anachnids, and pretty much reptiles and amphibians, too. Certainly, I cannot concieve of someone referring to a spider as an "animal" (except if they were being funny or poetic). BryanAJParry 17:36, 31 Dec 2005 (UTC)
 * It's not a funny thing -- spiders belong to the kingdom Animalia, and I've never seen it as wrong to call them animals -- Certainly higher biology has had that non-aesthetic mentality drilled into me. Like spiders, we don't refer to humans as animals either, but they still basically are. No pedant would criticise someone calling a human or spider an animal, but they might have something to say about calling a human a Creature. It's not divine, but let's check Mr.Dictionary "1) A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure. 2) An animal organism other than a human, especially a mammal." My preferred solution would be to use Wight for Creature, but to use Animal or Animalian for Animal, simply because it refers to a scientific taxa(which we're not tampering with right now). ~Inkstersco 1 Jan 06


 * Huh?? Is that a typo? You agree that wight should be a replacement for creature!? Well... so do I!! As I said. So why are you arguing? I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with your definitions: calling a spider an "animal" just sits wrong with me. And yes, man is a creature, because he is a thing which lives which is not really an animal. I don't care what the scientific names says. We aren't talking about scientific terminology which, frankly, is different to everythign else anyway. Frankly tho, I don't care so long as you amend the definition of wight to being "creature", "animal". :) BryanAJParry 16:02, 1 Jan 2006 (UTC)
 * A spider is an in-vertebrate, predatory, hunter-gatherer, seeing, thinking animal. It's an arachnid, therefore an animal. Almost every organism that moves is an animal. People will sooner call it a creepy-crawly, but it's still an animal. Maybe the word you're looking for is Mammal. Animal is scientific Latin (the -al isn't the suffix you think it is). Basically, although people are more likely to call a spider a Creature than an Animal, they would nonetheless agree that it is an Animal(no conflict). You seem to be an exception. If we are talking about the word Animal, we *are* talking about scientific terminology -- Animal is a scientific word. The main entrance of Animal into the English language was via scientific jargon(it's not Norman), and I think everyone agrees that if it exhibits dynamic animation, it is an animal. Evolutionarily, you can trace your relationship to a living spider twice as fast as you can any living plant, because you are an animal and of the Animal Kingdom(a strict classification). Think of the game 20 questions: The first question is always "Is it animal, mineral or vegetable?". The distinction between animal and creature is a question of usage context, not anything else. Indeed, a deer is called a Beast, and a spider is called a Minibeast. I think our disagreement hinges on your idea of a spider not being an animal being plain incorrect. So, basically, there is no difference in the denotation between Animal and Creature except that Animal is proporly taxalogical, and Creature is vague and creepy. ~Inkstersco 1 Jan 06


 * I have added "creature" = wight to the C section. BryanAJParry 11:28, 2 Jan 2006 (UTC)

WAIN = CAR **AND** WAGGON As no one has commented on my coment at the relevant talk page, how can a wain be both a car and a waggon? I think we should sift the meaning slightly better. My thoughts are at the W talkpage. :) BryanAJParry 11:28, 2 Jan 2006 (UTC)