[lit-ideas] Re: The Answering Machine
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:29:56 +0000 (GMT)
________________________________
From: "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx>
----
McEvoy goes on:
"Often even when humans 'answer the phone' they only do so to get
information or take a message and do not answer any questions:"
>The fallacy here may be etymological. In German, antwort (ans-wer) means
"contra-diction", literally.>
If the alleged "fallacy" is contained in the idea that we 'answer the phone',
how is this a fallacy - especially if we do answer it?
McEvoy:
"perhaps you would also like to take issue with the expression 'answer the
phone' on the basis that no questions are necessarily answered by whoever
picks up the receiver, so how do they answer the phone?"
>---- Strictly, the bell may count as the question:
RING RING RING ---- translated as "Is anybody home?">
If that is the question, then the activation of the answer-machine may be an
answer of sorts, and so the answer-machine answers.
----
McEvoy:
"And indeed the phone itself is simply a vehicle of communication that
itself does not communicate, so it is doubly wrong an expression as we do not
answer the phone but respond to the person ringing."
>I wouldn't think the _person_ rings. "Ring" is a mechanical verb: it
applies to bells, and machines (e.g. phones, or alarm clocks) but hardly to
persons (or birds).>
Machines may 'ring' but persons may also perform an action that is called
'ringing': 'I rang the alarm', 'I rang my brother on his mobile' etc. It is in
this sense second sense that we respond to the person ringing by answering the
phone. Obviously. If they were 'ringing' in the first sense we might respond by
calling a doctor.
Donal
Is there no end to this madness?
Salop
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