Date: Sun, 9 Feb 2003 13:46:58 -0500 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> To: Mark Murray <mark@grondar.org> Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: languages Message-ID: <20030209184658.GA19887@papagena.rockefeller.edu> In-Reply-To: <200302091820.h19IKpaX034953@grimreaper.grondar.org> References: <20030209181722.GA19704@papagena.rockefeller.edu> <200302091826.h19IQBaX035066@grimreaper.grondar.org>
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Mark Murray wrote:
> Dag-Erling Smorgrav writes:
> > All right, show me where in the XML 1.0 specification the
> > interpretation of the following snippet of XML described:
Presumably in some DTD somewhere? That's possible with XML (hence
"extensible")
> Where in a dictionary is the meaning of Jabberwocky explained?
>
> 'Twas brillig. and the slithy toves did gimble on the gyre....
>
> Language is a structure, not necessarily a meaning.
Well, it's explained later in "Through the looking glass", and some
of it even got into the dictionary later ("chortle", "galumph").
The newspeak words in Burgess's "A clockwork orange" aren't in fact
explained anywhere -- the reader understands them by context. But
they still have a meaning. Ditto with some of Edward Lear's nonsense.
I think language is a structure *and* a meaning, but the meaning
doesn't necessarily come from an authoritative dictionary (though the
Academie Française may disagree)
R
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