Tuesday, December 01, 2015
Don't advise on confusion if you're confused
Steven Pinker, until now a pretty good popularizer of philosophy and cognition, has ventured into a realm that he doesn't understand.
His new book lists a bunch of "misused and confused words" and tells us to start using them CORRECTLY.
Nope. You're the confused one, Stevie boy. You've failed to understand how language works. And since language is a crucial part of cognition, you've LOST THE RIGHT to call yourself a cognitive SCIENTIST.
If an electrical engineer wrote a book about how cars CORRECTLY run on rabbit fur instead of gasoline, we'd stop calling him any kind of engineer.
If a surgeon wrote a book claiming that humans CORRECTLY have five heads, and advising readers to get four new heads installed for improved health, we'd stop calling him any kind of doctor.
Exactly the same level of error, same depth of stupidity.
Actual linguists have NEVER made this basic mistake. They have ALWAYS understood that meaning and sound and syntax change in various ways, and have spent 200 years carefully mapping HOW AND WHY these changes occur. Linguists sometimes adopt dubious theories about a specific HOW AND WHY, but they generally fix those dubious theories after more observation. They NEVER assume that one form or style is CORRECT. In other words, linguists are among the very few GENUINE SCIENTISTS in today's hopelessly fucked world.
The UK Telegraph article repeatedly describes Pinker as a "linguist", which is blasphemy. Misusing an occupational title is not a question of form or style or grammar; it's a legal distinction similar to fraud or trademark abuse, though probably not actionable.
Labels: Language update
¶ 4:49 AM
