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February 10, 2006
'Dettol protects. Fact!'
This blog hasn’t been too linguistic recently, partly because I have London Language as an alternative outlet, as well as lots of opportunities to talk about language in class.
I got a really nice example from Apoa the other morning. We were discussing facts and propositions (I’m sure all parents chat about things like this with their kids over breakfast, right?) and we were agreeing that facts exist but that we can never know for sure which things are facts, when she said, ‘Dettol protects. Fact!’
For the pragmatists among you, it strikes me as an interesting echoic usage illsutrating something rather than saying it, and also to be a good example of linguistic underdeterminacy - how do you work out the relationship between the two bits, and what exactly does ‘dettol protects’ mean?
Went to see Proof last night, followed by a talk with John Madden, who reminded me that maths is one area where you can prove things conclusively. One big issue with the film, of course, is that they can’t tell us anything about the maths in it as we wouldn’t have a clue about what it meant.
Just updated the site a bit, btw. Some new links below and a few handouts from this year’s teaching.
B-)
Posted by Billy at February 10, 2006 12:57 PM
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