[lit-ideas] Re: Your Favorite Misnomer
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2004 21:10:31 EDT
In a message dated 9/2/2004 1:39:40 AM Eastern Standard Time,
atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
> We used to have a bookcase in the front hall with a piece of red
> carpeting on the top -- a landing place for keys, glasses, mail and bits
> of this and that on its way from one place to another. At least fifteen
> years ago, the bookcase was replaced, moved down the hall and covered by
> a new carpet, not red at all. To this day we all still say, "I'll leave
> it on the red carpet for you." You just don't mess with things like
> that...
I like that. I like the notion that names can overtake their referent.
Someday I'll sit down and cogitate what that all means. How much of our
lives are spent reverencing names that have become thier own referent?
----
Interesting way of putting.
Reminds me of J. S. Mill's discussion in _System of Logic_. He is
distinguishing between a connotation and a denotation of a name, and how they
can
diverge. An example discussed by I think Susan Haack is that
the University of Warwick
is actually in _Coventry_.
That _could_ also be a 'misnomer', unless you take 'Warwick' to be short for
'Warwickshire' (and Coventry _is_ in Warwickshire).
Note that, perhaps interestingly, 'the red carpet' is not what (some)
philosophers call a _name_ but a 'definite description'. This may have to do
with
something (for when Geary cogitates this), for it may be said that names do
not have any _right_ to be imposed on things. This contrast with something I
was reading the other day in Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts -- and Funny
Sayings (by Bob Phillips), Tyndale House Publishers:
"The beginning of wisdom is to call things
by their right names."
Chinese proverb.
It struck me as rather an unwise thing to quote, if funny, though.
Geary has not yet expanded (if he ever will) why he thinks A. Ramos responded
>President Bush
to the current query (about one's favourite misnomings).
Cheers,
JL
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