Субстанция мышления. Язык как окно в человеческую природу

The tethering of words to reality helps allay the worry that language ensnares us in a self-contained web of symbols. In this worry, the meanings of words are ultimately circular, each defined in terms of the others. As one semanticist observed, a typical dictionary plays this game when it tells the user that "to order means to command", that to direct and instruct "are not so strong as command or order", that command means "to direct, with the right to be obeyed", that direct means "to order", that instruct means "to give orders", and so on. This cat's cradle is dreaded by those who crave certainty in words, embraced by adherents of deconstructionism and postmodernism, and exploited by the writer of a dictionary of computer jargon:

endless loop, n. See loop, endless.
loop, endless, n. See endless loop.

The paradox of identifying taboo words without using them has always infected attempts to regulate speech about sexuality. In several states, the drafters of the statute against bestiality could not bring themselves to name it and therefore outlawed “the abominable and detestable crime against nature,” until the statutes were challenged for being void for vagueness. To avoid this trap, a New Jersey obscenity statute stipulated exactly which kinds of words and images would be deemed obscene. But the wording of the statute was so pornographic that some law libraries tore the page out of every copy of the statute books.

The concept of a connotation is often explained by the conjugational formula devised by Bertrand Russell in a 1950s radio interview: I am firm; you are obstinate; he is pigheaded. The formula was turned into a word game in a radio show and newspaper feature and elicited hundreds of triplets. I am slim; you are thin; he is scrawny. I am a perfectionist; you are anal; he is a control freak. I am exploring my sexuality; you are promiscuous; she is a slut. In each triplet the literal meaning of the words is held constant, but the emotional meaning ranges from attractive to neutral to offensive.