Quotes About Semantics

Drop a word in the ocean of meaning and concentric ripples form. To define a single word means to try to catch those ripples. No one's hands are fast enough.

All statements are true, if you are free to redefine their terms.

Whenever anyone says, 'theoretically', they really mean, 'not really'.

Words, too, have genuine substance -- mass and weight and specific gravity.

It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means 'is and never has been' that's one thing - if it means 'there is none', that was a completely true statement.

A word is nothing unless it has values and an atmosphere, unless you grasp its historical significance.

to employ words is not the same as to understand what they mean. Moreover, the relation between words and their meanings is elastic. Words remain, while meanings are subject to change.

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg?… Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Sometimes,because we use the same words,we assume we mean the same thing

Today's science is yesterday's magic, friend Oak. Today's magic is tomorrow's science. All disciplines are tangent and the differences between them often nothing more substantial than semantics. Scientists or laibon who dismiss conclusions out of hand because they do not countenance the methodology utilized to reach them forfeit their title.

Man's achievements rest upon the use of symbols.... we must consider ourselves as a symbolic, semantic class of life, and those who rule the symbols, rule us.

God wants us to walk in obedience - not victory. Obedience is oriented toward God; victory is oriented toward self. This may seem to be merely splitting hairs over semantics, but there's a subtle, self-centered attitude at the root of many of our difficulties with sin. Until we deal with this attitude, we won't consistently walk in holiness.

As with all semantic difficulties, the answer can only be arbitrary.

He would say ect. instead of ect., and thus instead of ect., instead of ect. and thus and so forth!

An utterance can have Intentionality, just as a belief has Intentionality, but whereas the Intentionality of the belief is intrinsic the Intentionality of the utterance is derived.

Sentences are not as such either true or false.

Gardens always mean something else, man absolutely uses one thing to say another.

Nonsemes and mathemes stand next to each other in detached and mutually irrelevant jumbles. They lack the crucial valency that ties sentence to sentence in a truth-directed argument or formula to formula in a valid proof, and they can accumulate forever without getting to the point of saying or revealing what they mean.

La tautologie. Oui, je sais, le mot n'est pas beau. Mais la chose est fort laide aussi.

When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.' 'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.' 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master — that's all.

When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more, nor less.

When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.

I maintain that any writer of a book is fully authorised in attaching any meaning he likes to a word or phrase he intends to use. If I find an author saying, at the beginning of his book, Let it be understood that by the word 'black' I shall always mean 'white,' and by the word 'white' I shall always mean 'black,' I meekly accept his ruling, however injudicious I think it.

When I make a word do a lot of work like that,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'I always pay it extra.