Sinister: don't hit me plaese. tautologies are mean
Here's another oxymoron that might be more interesting:
"I am a lazy gett, she is as pure as the cold driven snow"
but it depends on an interpretation of 'driven' as driven through, or maybe driven away, as an outcast? This is iffy and
with my original mishearing of 'cold' as 'coal', i.e. perfect snow that has been blackened by human traffic. A point in my favor: snow is suc> h a cliched image for purity, he must have meant to use it in a new way. Otherwise, what does 'driven' have to do with
probably has to do purity, unless it's purity
of the repressed or frigid sort, not innocence.
I don't see what you mean here, Youn. Isn't 'cold driven snow' just a st> ock phrase? It might sound odd, but I'm pretty sure lots of people use it. I> t's kind of poetic, as cliches go. I always assumed it meant 'driven' in the> sense of a blizzard that 'drives' down hard. But I have to say I was never qui> te sure.
yeah, that's what it means- blizzard of snow that's fiercely packed down. it sounded like an old phrase, so i called my eighty year old grandfather, and he assured me that it's an old phrase, and it means like, when the snow is all in drifts and such because there's so much. yikes, that was an awkward call. "yeah, grandpa...no, nobody i know in real life...yes, on the computer...no I still like girls."
But aren't tautologies supposed to be literally
contingent on either interpretation of 'or'. But
tautological? Then it> 's this isn't taking
into account the meaning of 'could'. It's a tautology with a wide sco> pe reading for the modal, which is justified because 'either' follows it, unless you don't believe it's possible for anyone to be successful. A> nd say that we mean something is possible if it is at all possible.
Okay, we can settle this with a little symbolic logic. (that, by the way, is an ace thing to say in bed. try it, and watch the ladies' faces pop into a rictus of terror) in logic, tautologies are true under every interpretation. that means it must be true no matter what *individual* truth values are assigned to the atomic sentences of 'you are us' and 'you are successful'. Stuart seems to be using this in the "exclusive" sense, in that he seems to be saying "you could be successful, or be us, but you can't be successful AND be us." or in symbols- where U is (you could be us) and S is (you could be successful) SvU * (~[U*S]). So, when both S and U are assigned the truth value of "true", it comes out as false. so, it's not a tautology. okay, for that all, I deserve to be hit, I know. I would go into the modal logic and Wittgensteinian language games that would blow all this away, but that would require a special program, and even then, I would hate myself for posting it. to say nothing of all those people who are saying "what the...an asterisk?". i'm sorry.hopefully this ends the thread. if we're lucky.. keep watching the lyric sheets! (oxymoron- the reality of the dream- space boy dream) kevin +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
On Tue, 15 Aug 2000 kmhyde@wm.edu wrote:
yeah, that's what it means- blizzard of snow that's fiercely packed down. it sounded like an old phrase, so i called my eighty year old grandfather, and he assured me that it's an old phrase, and it means like, when the snow is all in drifts and such because there's so much.
yikes, that was an awkward call. "yeah, grandpa...no, nobody i know in real life...yes, on the computer...no I still like girls."
Thanks, Kevin. A grandfather's opinion is very important, and you were very brave to risk it. Both of you were right, of course. Here are a few hits from google: "Pure as the Driven Snow A Working Girl's Secret by Paul Loomis" "...Nuclear Sewage Water Pure as Driven Snow A New Technology Makes..." "Pure as the driven snow...yeah, sure." "Pure as the driven snow: study dispels myth about street heroin" Yeah, they were chosen selectively. But am I the only one who thinks the expression is used ambiguously in the song?
Okay, we can settle this with a little symbolic logic. (that, by the way, is an ace thing to say in bed. try it, and watch the ladies' faces pop into a rictus of terror) in logic, tautologies are true under every interpretation. that means it must be true no matter what *individual* truth values are assigned to the atomic sentences of 'you are us' and 'you are successful'. Stuart seems to be using this in the "exclusive" sense, in that he seems to be saying "you could be successful, or be us, but you can't be successful AND be us." or in symbols- where U is (you could be us) and S is (you could be successful) SvU * (~[U*S]). So, when both S and U are assigned the truth value of "true", it comes out as false. so, it's not a tautology.
Exclusive and inclusive readings apply to 'or', not to the definition of a tautology. I agree that it seems that the exclusive reading is meant, but I think that is evident, without taking speaker intentions into account, from the use of either/or. A contingent statement is neither a tautology nor a contradiction, so we're basically saying the same thing.
I would go into the modal logic
All I meant is that if you believe that it is possible for anyone to be successful, then the statement "you could be successful" is a tautology. There is no need to work this out in propositional logic because it is intuitively obvious. (What I said in my previous email implied that the scope of 'could' relative to 'or' matters, but it doesn't because the following statements are true in the same situations: "it is possible for you to be successful or it is possible for you to be us"; "it is possible for you either to be successful or to be us".) I'm not so sure anymore if tautologies depend on literal interpretations though I can't think of any non-literal ones. If not, then what Nick was pointing out, why the statement might thought to be a tautology but isn't one, has merit and at least greater audience appeal then the stuff above. A common form for tautologies is p or not p, but natural language doesn't follow the law of the excluded middle, i.e. you can be neither successful nor unsuccessful - just middling. I know that Kevin wanted the thread to end, but everyone wants to have the last say. And these things are exciting to me. I decided to keep my Clientele cd. I'll be able to hear it in a week. Then I've got to find the one featuring a duet with Pam Berry. Would Steady (Mvi) * (~kve) happen to know if it's going to be on the upcoming album? (This question will never get answered down here.) Yours, Youn +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the undead Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "peculiarly deranged fanbase" "frighteningly named +-+ +-+ Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
participants (2)
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kmhyde＠wm.edu -
Youn J. Noh