On 1/19/2013 1:59 PM, Andrew Fildes wrote:
> No, it has been assigned an inaccurate meaning by a group using a term seen
> to be positive to promote an agenda.
Here's a question for you. Is it possible to legislate meaning of words? Calif.
passed legislation some years ago that
defines what the word "Organic" means on food labels. Producers must pass
inspections/tests in order to be able to use
it. Several other states have followed suit, generally, I believe, following
the CA one, so products produced in one
state may be sold in others.
One outcome is that many products, some actually food, have gone to use of the
unregulated term, "natural" to say that
their products come from nature, without the use/addition of industrially
produced chemicals, or some such description.
The folks making and using these products are pretty loose in their use of the
term "chemical".
> It's like Macdonalds referring to their establishments as 'restaurants'. Like
> hell they are.
> If the furniture is bolted down and you can hose it out, it's not a
> restaurant.
That's a pure curmudgeon complaint. I just don't see the point of such a
distinction. I've never eaten* McD's food, and
have never had any trouble distinguishing it from purveyors of palatable food,
just because it may be called a restaurant.
> There's an erosion of meaning going on.
Here, I'm torn between your stance of "erosion" and Mike's substitution of
"evolution". Language does need to evolve,
and making up new words seems not to be a natural process. As the evolution of
the need for a new term/meaning develops
gradually, it seems natural that people would start using a close seeming
existing word. That seems to be how English
has acquired many terms from other languages.
And in the case at hand, I'm not sure any significant problems of usage/meaning
are actually occurring. How many people
using 'organic' in the now common was about food actually have any need to know
the different meaning to a chemist? Do
you imagine any chemists are confused by the use in food labeling?
As long as nobody is hurt, I'm happy to accept the change as evolution.
The word we lost that I miss is 'discrimination'. This was a really useful word
for talking about the ability to discern
differences. The addition of the assumption of both value judgements and
actions based on those judgments into the word
have left us the poorer in language.
Discernment doesn't have quite the same meaning, and "Capable of making find
distinctions, but without necessarily
assigning moral/meaning values to them, and certainly without acting based on
them, without further words specifying
so." is a bit awkward**.
On 20/01/2013, at 5:53 AM, Mike Lazzari wrote:
>> The word "organic" has different meanings in different context. Not
>> unlike many words in English. Straighten out your panties folks.
Just so.
Naturally Organic Moose
* A careful distinction. I had children. They watched TV ads and had playmates.
McD's had Happy Meals. I am not a
tyrant, nor am I an absolutist. Thus, I purchased quite a few Happy Meals, and
other such stuff. Never ate any, although
I had a close call. One son, knowing I like dill pickles, offered the small,
carefully centered one from his hamburger
to me. I almost got it to my mouth before realizing the potential error of my
ways. :-) ;-)
** One of those wonderful words that looks and sounds like its meaning. "...
wkw ...", wow!
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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