Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 09:51:12 -0400 From: Stirling Newberry <allegro-AT-thecia.net> Subject: Re: PLC: Farbenlehre At 6:00 AM -0500 11/12/97, Patsloane-AT-aol.com wrote: >> > Wittgenstein favors the view that perception -- not just in- >> >terpretation -- is conventionally determined, therefore easily >> >suscep- tible to modification. He argues that if, say, light >> >blue and dark blue were known by dissimilar names -- in the >> >example, the names are "Oxford" and "Cambridge" -- people would >> >say they saw no similarity between them (1958, 135). The >> >generalization is too broad. Names can create a bias for or >> >against the named object or color, which is why <daffodil >> >yellow> sounds more appealing than <pus yellow>. But pairs of >> >color names as different in sound and spelling as <Oxford> and >> ><Cambridge> exist. Viewers shown the pairs of colors, or >> >familiar with them, recognize a visual similarity. Dark brown >> >and chestnut, cerulean and turquoise, ver- milion and crimson, >> >ocher and mustard, are examples. >> >> But the creation of a separate word indicates a cultural or linguistic >> determination that a person in the culture *ought* to be able to recognise >> the difference between the two colors. > >Stirling, > >Not necessarily. There are thousands of color names in English, and >dictionaries have been made of color names. Nobody's done a linguistic >analysis, but many of the names are probably synonyms. The range of colors >you call dark brown I might prefer to call coffee brown, but we're talking >about the same colors. Cerulean and turqoise probably mean the same thing. > So how did we get two names for the same range of colors? They might be >imports into Englsih from two different languages. Or they might come from >two different subcultures. One name might be used by artists and the other >name by decorators. > >This happens in other areas besides color. A horse can be called a steed. >Pigs can be called swine. Spite can be called malice. Sometimes it starts >out that there's a small difference between what the two words mean. But >people get sloppy and use them interchangeably. > >pat sloane Which is merely the same process in reverse. A distinction sinks down below the threshold. Often the words remain in place. I would say that there is a difference between a modification of a colour, such as "dark brown" which is an attempt to create a distinction for a particular comparison, and the creation of a separate word. There is also another confusion that is in the W example - the difference between distinctions which can be recognised by remembering signs, and distinctions which require a higher level of perception. To a person who follows fashion, the changes that take place merely required remembering the alterations of elements that are already being observed. To a person who does not, it requires a higher concentration on perceiving itself to see the differences. Stirling Newberry business: openmarket.com personal: allegro-AT-thecia.net War and Romance: http://www.thecia.net/users/allegro/public_html --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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