Bike buying dilemma

Speed is relative and if you shit your pants at 130mph then 130mph is
fast.

 

Are you in the girls ring?

 

.... take some imodium and give it more beanage?

 

He struggles feebly to rise from the canvas but to no avail....

 

lolz++

 

Dont forget those of us who just enjoy pootling around in no particular
hurry. What is so wrong with the laid back attitude to life.

 

This is the attitude that leads to people being unable to express
themselves with precision.

 

I'm with Simian on this one. And Wittgenstein - "the meaning of a word
is its use in the language".

And old Ludwig knew a bit about language.

 

Wittgenstein (I assume, I know nothing about him) had the good sense to
express this idea, and all his others, in words and grammatical structures
which had been established by convention, acknowledging implicitly the
limitations of his thesis. Humpty Dumpty ("a word means what I want it to
mean") took the idea a little further, and demonstrated the problem with
replacing convention with indifference or personal preference.

There is nothing more boring than discussing the meaning of words when you
would rather be using them to discuss something else. There is nothing more
pathetic than excusing ones inability to use conventionally correct
language by asserting individual license. And there is nothing more
impressive than elegant use of lingustic convention to express an idea
which has intrinsic value.

 

**** that for a game of soldiers.

 

what about:

"ur mom lol"

 

I've got an idea for you: Wah wah wah.

 

Heh.

 

No it's not: otherwise the legal system couldn't operate.

Precision is always important if you want to be understood correctly.

 

This is quite possibly one of the most inane statements I've ever read,
on UKRM or anywhere else, for that matter.

D.

 

Simian wrote in uk.rec.motorcycles:

IME, it is often the listening that is imprecise. I find it very
frustrating and annoying when people assume I mean something other than
what I actually say.

 

True, a High Court judge always turns first to the OED. The definitions
often feature several alternatives, though. So, clearly, words have
different meanings depending on the context. When the evidence gets in
to technical areas, it can go beyond simple cases where the context is
obvious. Hence, Simian's mention of jargon. The legal system isn't short
of that. Consider the word nuisance, for example. What is the
'definition' of that word?


BTW, I'm sure Mr Carley isn't arguing the exact opposite of Simian.

--
+----------------------------------------------------------------+
| Pete Fisher at Home: |
| Voxan Roadster Gilera Nordwest * 2 Yamaha WR250Z |
| Gilera GFR * 2 Moto Morini 2C/375 Morini 350 "Forgotten Error" |
+----------------------------------------------------------------+

 

Go easy on him, he's just having a yellow day.

 

But you're okay with incorrect use, yes? Not using capital letters
where they would be "correct" indicates this.

And the OED is with you and Simian.

Old Ludwig knew a lot about a lot.

 

It seems he wrote in German, so I wouldn't either.

Oh go on - I was trying to make a reductio ad absurdum more interesting.
I'll acknowledge it was a bit cheap though.

I agree, etymology can be fascinating. But I meant something different.
After a weekend skiing (yeah!) I've rather lost the train of thought, but I
think I was thinking of, for example, the sterile conversations I sometimes
have in my line of work about "knowledge sharing" and "knowledge
management"; both are so poorly defined in general usage, especially in
relation to each other, that I often have to start by establishing what I
mean by the terms. Some people would rather discuss the definitions forever
rather than getting them out of the way in order to explore the
implications of the concepts they represent.

Absolutely, and the cultural context of words is an important part of the
richness of language. I would argue though that you have to be able to use
language precisely in order to make the best use of the cultural context.
Particularly in humour or satire, a deliberately incorrect construction or
malapropism has to be recognisable as deliberate.

Whatever's appropriate. Or creatively inappropriate. Which is why
"LTSTPRU" is rarely funny, but "ur mom lol" up there was.