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Assume v. Presume

Mike0001 said:
It is equivalent to

A or B or C

in maths,
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OK...
but English needs the either word to lead in
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Er, no it doesn't. As I said before, what's wrong with "one of"?
"Pick A, B or C" - doesn't need either.
"Pick one of A, B or C" - doesn't need either.
Black Hole said:
I don't give a stuff about Chambers or any other. Rules to be obeyed by the ignorant and as guidelines (not tramlines) for the intelligentsia.
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Try that in a court of law and see how far you get.
In any case, isn't this whole thread (which you started) about rules, which now you say you don't care a thing about? That makes you a hypocrite, does it not? Or perhaps you're going to disappear in a puff of logic?
Black Hole said:
prpr would object to "use either lane" if he was faced with a choice of three,
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Quite. I'm sure most people would find this very odd, thus giving more weight to "either" being a choice of two.
and not be able to proceed further until somebody painted it out and replaced it with "use any lane"
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Yes. What's the point of "either" if it means the same as "any"?
 
But does it? "Either" is definitely exclusive, "any"... I'm not sure, I would have to think about it.

prpr said:
In any case, isn't this whole thread (which you started) about rules, which now you say you don't care a thing about?
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I've said it before: dictionaries record how words are used, not how they ought to be used. Unfortunately, the general population use words in a sub-optimal manner, so dictionary definitions are also sub-optimal.

Mike0001 said:
Anyway, in my book, being a synonym is reflexive, so the list of synonyms of a word necessarily includes the word itself.
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Only a mathematician could consider a word as a synonym of itself! I don't accept that definition.

Mike0001 said:
Extend the idea of synonym to include phrases too.
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Why?

Mike0001 said:
A dictionary then lists words together with synonymous phrases. Without that, we would never be sure what a word means. (Except by using a pictionary.)
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Words that signify objects are easy enough to define by a picture, but how would you go about drawing a picture of an abstract concept such as "fun"?

I can't accept that a phrase used to explain a word is synonymous with the word itself. My beef with synonyms at all is that I don't think words are 1:1 replacements - they all have some subtle differentiation of meaning or connotation which makes one more suitable than another in any particular context. Hence assume v. presume. A thesaurus is handy to provide suggestions for a better word when you can't think of it, but it contains lists of approximate synonyms not actual synonyms.
 
Black Hole said:
But does it? "Either" is definitely exclusive, "any"... I'm not sure, I would have to think about it.
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I believe "any" is inclusive. It is only exclusive if qualified, e.g. "Pick any one of the following." or by context/implication as in "Use any lane." where in most cases one would be expected to drive within a single lane.
 
Black Hole said:
I can't accept that a phrase used to explain a word is synonymous with the word itself. My beef with synonyms at all is that I don't think words are 1:1 replacements - they all have some subtle differentiation of meaning or connotation which makes one more suitable than another in any particular context. H
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But who, apart from dictionary compilers decides and sets down that distinction? You can't claim a distinction without any definitive way of verifying it.

The definition of fun pictorially is an interesting point. Mrs Mike and a colleague devised such a test with contrasting cartoon pictures. It was quite crude but correlation was high with what subjects tried to describe as a concept. The idea was to take people with brain damage induced aphasia and get them to point at a series of picture pairs, saying where they placed their own moods, eg, guilt, happiness, confidence. They could then be assessed before and after treatment.
 
Black Hole said:
I think it would be difficult to come up with pictograms to distinguish between "happy" and "fun".
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Fortunately they didn't need to. It was an aside. As for the original pictionary mention, I would say that some objects can be defined by pictures, and for some things there possibly exact synonyms, eg, gnu and wildebeest.
 
Even gnu and wildebeest are not exactly the same, even though they refer to the same thing. The one I would use depends on the intended audience.
 
EEPhil said:
The trick would be to find a word that is an antonym of itself.
Oh dear! I tried to look up the antonym of "itself" (with a view to making it clear that I wasn't referring to the word "itself" :confused: ) and went on a mysterious journey which led to contronyms - http://mentalfloss.com/article/49834/14-words-are-their-own-opposites.
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My browser got into a loop with that, but I like the idea of a contribution!

http://www.dailywritingtips.com/75-contronyms-words-with-contradictory-meanings/

Of course, it won't work, as BH will say they are not exact opposites...
 
Apparently some ex singer on a show called The Real Marigold Hotel said that Indians lived simplistically last night, instead of simply!
 
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