When I use a word ... Ordinary words with extraordinary meanings

Abstract

> ‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I use it to mean—neither more nor less.’ > > Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and > > What Alice Found There , 1871 It is said that if a BBC broadcaster splits an infinitive, indignant listeners jam the telephone lines, complaining. And letters to The Times newspaper about the misuse of English are so frequent that at one time (and perhaps even today, for all I know), a member of staff was given the task of replying to them in mollifying tones. People care about words. And so they should. Words, adapting Peter Medawar, are like church bells, and it is our fault as bellringers if they do not make a cheerful and harmonious sound when we ring out our message. Humpty Dumpty's words, quoted above, are not frivolous. They are merely a throwaway version of something that Lewis Carroll wrote in an article entitled The Stage and the Spirit of Reverence : ‘No word has a meaning inseparably attached to it; a word means what the speaker intends by it, and what the hearer understands by it, and that is all’. Wittgenstein agreed. Aphorism 43 in his Philosophical Investigations reads: ‘For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in …