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Day: September 19, 2016
Why is the word “cat” almost the same in all languages?
The word cat is the same in a lot of languages, for the same reason that Coca-Cola is the same in even more languages. Because most cats were domesticated, and originated, in one place: Egypt. Not all cats: there was a separate domestication, Wikipedia tells me (Cat), in China. And extremely early domestication in Cyprus […]
What is the pragmatics wastebasket?
To my embarrassment, I did not know what the pragmatics wastebasket was, so I did some googling. Pragmatics (textbook account) Out of the Pragmatic Wastebasket (Bar-Hillel’s note) Pragmatics waste-basket The history of linguistics is a succession of scholars saying: X is what we will pay attention to, and Y is crap we can’t be bothered […]