Language

[Aaron]

I just had a thought (yes, sometimes even I have them). I was reading a post on here and I came across a word I didn't know the definition for. Then I thought about some of the rather non-everyday words I encounter on this forum and how some of my friends would be immediately turned off because of that. Then I thought well that's no problem, they can just search for the word and be reading the definition in a matter of seconds.

But now this is what I want to discuss. Suppose a person looks up a word's definition and in the definition there are other words which they don't understand and then pretty soon the whole thing has branched off into a huge tree. At first glance I would have thought language was simple, just use the dictionary and that's all you need. But now that I'm thinking about it it seems a lot more complicated. It's almost as if a person just has to pretend like they can use the language and eventually the meanings for words start to fill in. What I mean is that language is not unto itself. You almost have to be a human being and have human experiences in order to know what a word means. You can't just look up a word and have a taste, if you will for what it represents, for what it describes and encompasses. You have to live it to understand it.

In my opinion there's been a lot of talking on here about knowledge and what it is and how we get it. I have a feeling that we gain knowledge in much the same way as we gain the taste of a word, if you'll allow me to say that. But I suppose I'd have to do a lot more thinking about that. So does anyone else have any thoughts on this?

[Moonwood the Hare]

Yes, You should read Michael Polanyi. I really am going now.