Today’s quiz: What’s the difference between a bag and a sack? (Spoiler alert: Before you read further, what’s your answer to that question?) All right, you have your answer? It’s not hard, after all. I put the question to three dozen first-year students at a small Midwestern college. Here’s what some of them said: ..... Get the picture? It’s a little blurry. I favor the following explanation, offered by five students: —There is no difference. But if there is none, how come most people think there’s a difference? I think it comes from this principle: Just as nature hates a vacuum, so language hates synonyms. To be precise, it’s the users of language who hate exact synonyms. After all, common sense and our experience of language tell us that if there are two different words, they must refer to two different things. So when two words seem to refer to the same thing, we are inclined to invent a difference. Linguists don’t like what’s known as “free variation” either. When there is seemingly random variation between words people use, or between pronunciations of a particular word, linguists like to look for conditioning factors that can predict which variant a person will use, factors like age and region and ethnicity. The hypothesis is that different words will always have at least slightly different meanings. It just seems natural. Try this exercise yourself: What’s the difference between a pail and a bucket? How about a lightning bug and a firefly? They aren’t exactly the same, are they? chronicle/blogs/linguafranca/2013/09/16/no-synonyms-please/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en
Posted on: Mon, 16 Sep 2013 09:25:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015