[lit-ideas] Re: How elementary, elementary?
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 09:01:40 +0100 (BST)
--- Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > --- Donal McEvoy
<donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > --- Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >
> > > --- Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx wrote:
> > > > "The cat is on the mat" -- elementary
> > > > Donal McEvoy writes in reply to R. Henninge:
> > > > Are you claiming that that a name like "cat"
> > that
> > > > can be analysed in terms of
> > > > other names (eg. leg, head, tooth) can be an EP?
> > >
> > > A cat is not a 'name.'
> >
> > What? You may be sure I meant the term 'cat' is a
> > name of the object cat? Is
> > this not true? Why?
>
> *First, a cat is not an 'object.'
Again it seems to me there is a clear sense in which "a cat", such as my cat
Tinka, is an object. Perhaps you can clarify how there is no sense in which a
cat is not an 'object'.
>More importantly,
> here, the word 'cat' is not a name because it is not
> tied to one entity in reality in the way 'Tom' or
> 'Tekumseh' is.
But why should this stipulation be accepted: ie. that only if tied to one
entity is something a name?
>One would expect the distinction
> between proper names and generic nouns to be clear to
> an elementary school pupil, in the upper grades it
> least.
But no one claimed "cat" is a *proper* name afaik. Are you stipulating that
all "names" are proper names? If so, why?
It is, afaik, perfectly good English to use "names" instead of "generic
nouns" eg. what is the name of/for the four-legged furry creature that
famously likes saucers of milk? The reply: "The question is nonsense because
you fail to see that there is no name for such a creature only a generic noun
which one expect to be clear even to an elementary school pupil", seems to me
pedantic, point-missing and false in point of what does make sense in
English. In fact, it also seems to me quite alimentary (as in the canal).
So I still don't see how it is mistaken that "cat" is not a name; though of
course it is not a _proper_ name - but even I know that.
> > >Further, a cat cannot be
> > > analysed simply in terms of a sum of its bodily
> > parts.
> >
> > Where did I claim this? The question is whether it
> > is an elementary term or
> > name and how is it? And if not what is.
>
> *Right there where you did. Possibly you meant 'the
> concept of cat', but it does not really make any
> substantial difference.
I did not claim "a cat" can be analysd "simply" (as in "only") in terms of
body parts: for example, I can see it possible the term be analysed in terms
of its relation to other terms.
So I still don't see where I said what OK claims.
> *I suggest that you refrain from commenting on my
> name, or acronyms thereof, and focus instead on
> improving your thinking and writing.
>
> O.K.
Okey dokey.
Donal
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