A New Crack on the Road: Deep Scratch
A few weeks ago I posted about certain words I thought were interesting for their variability and elusiveness. The words of my preoccupation were arbitrary and capriciously chosen.
The response was:
Flattered to be called a Monsieur, I am compelled to post a not-so-shallow reply to my faithful viewer and newest follower.
Technically, the words that appear in Crack on the Road cannot be called neologisms. Certainly at some point or other these were "slang", although admittedly they do not contribute to the library of of whatever it means to be traditional or formal language. However, these words have a sound place to sleep midst the pages of our dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Sir Lucho is all over the place with several questions simultaneously raised. What about Love, Infinity, Disease, or Cat? Interestingly, the order of the list moves categorically from greatest abstraction of indefinable texture to what is presumably concrete. Defining Love cannot be as easy as explaining "cat", for example. At any rate, according to certain thinkers in the structuralist universe of philosophy (namely Saussure), words mean according to that which they are not in an endless strung web of signifying symbols and signified concepts. No word has essential meaning -- complicating what the word "cat" means/signifies.
But I am admittedly bored of conversing about what things are not, deconstructing meaning so that the only meaning left is that which makes available less meaning. Why not redeem some meaning and ruminate Love?
Below this one are a couple of posts related to love. Let these two philosophers do some talking for me. C.S. Lewis and Jacques Derrida.
“... we must be careful never to adopt prematurely a moral or evaluating attitude [about pleasures]. The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize. We must do nothing of the sort about the pleasures. The reality is too complicated.” -C.S. Lewis
The response was:
"Monsieur Robert, your list is very short and circumstantial; what about love, infinity, God, disease or cat?. On the other hand, if we try neologisms every day, we will get back to our own solitary and individual self and will not be able to communicate.... Communicating is really so important? Who knows"Posted by: Lucho
Flattered to be called a Monsieur, I am compelled to post a not-so-shallow reply to my faithful viewer and newest follower.
Technically, the words that appear in Crack on the Road cannot be called neologisms. Certainly at some point or other these were "slang", although admittedly they do not contribute to the library of of whatever it means to be traditional or formal language. However, these words have a sound place to sleep midst the pages of our dictionaries and encyclopedias.
Sir Lucho is all over the place with several questions simultaneously raised. What about Love, Infinity, Disease, or Cat? Interestingly, the order of the list moves categorically from greatest abstraction of indefinable texture to what is presumably concrete. Defining Love cannot be as easy as explaining "cat", for example. At any rate, according to certain thinkers in the structuralist universe of philosophy (namely Saussure), words mean according to that which they are not in an endless strung web of signifying symbols and signified concepts. No word has essential meaning -- complicating what the word "cat" means/signifies.
But I am admittedly bored of conversing about what things are not, deconstructing meaning so that the only meaning left is that which makes available less meaning. Why not redeem some meaning and ruminate Love?
Below this one are a couple of posts related to love. Let these two philosophers do some talking for me. C.S. Lewis and Jacques Derrida.
“... we must be careful never to adopt prematurely a moral or evaluating attitude [about pleasures]. The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize. We must do nothing of the sort about the pleasures. The reality is too complicated.” -C.S. Lewis
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