On Semantics

*NOTE: this is highly outdated.  I began writing this post about 15 months ago but then quit blogging.  But, since I still find the subject compelling and am still outraged by it, I figured I may as well finish it.  The story below is from my time at Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD.

A certain professor of mine absolutely floored me today [roughly February, 2011]. In order to protect her anonymity I will not mention her by name. I'll just call her Grofessor Dathy Bourtney. In the course of class, she had given us advice regarding a certain situation (x) that I disagreed with. We then took a test over the material and on it there was a question regarding this situation. The question was formulated thusly: "What would you do in situation (x)?" Being the honest person that I am, I answered by telling her the truth about what I would do in that situation. She promptly gave me no points for that portion of my answer.


After class I went ahead and pointed out to her that if she wanted me to regurgitate what she had told us we SHOULD do in that situation, she should have used the word "should" instead of "would" (or more precisely, she should have said "what did I recommend you do in situation (x)" since, obviously, I believed my response to the situation to be better than hers.  Otherwise, it's not what I would do.). Did I know what she told us to do? Yes. That was not the question. The question was what I would do. When confronted with this obvious point I was met with two responses: 1. "Well all the other students knew what I wanted there." 2. "That's just semantics."

1. What an idiotic statement. Not to mention dishonest, given that I saw other people's tests who missed the exact same question. But it's idiotic in the sense that it doesn't even begin to address the issue.  First, how does she know the other students didn't interpret it the same way I did but just happened to agree with her take on how (x) should be handled?  Second, even if the other students interpreted it how she wanted them to, it certainly doesn't follow that they interpreted it correctly.  It could very well be that they all interpreted it in a way that the definitions of the words used did not actually allow them to interpret it.

2. This is really the point of this post. There is nothing - NOTHING - I hate more than when, in the course of an argument or discussion a person's viewpoint is discounted with the statement that an important distinction is "merely semantics". If two words have two entirely different definitions, then a person should never be faulted for wanting those words to be used according to their actual definitions. What is the purpose of a definition if not to be used? Isn't this a slippery slope into really destroying the meaning of language altogether if we are to be faulted for not ignoring correct definitions? The notion that a professor would criticize a student for taking the wording of her test literally is utterly mind-blowing to me.

Consider this: in order to have answered this question in the way she wanted me to, I literally would have had to have given the wrong answer. If I say I would do (a) [when (a) is what she thinks I should do] when in reality I would do (b), I am both lying and answering the question incorrectly. I would say she is misusing the English language but that doesn't quite capture it. Strictly speaking she used proper English. Perhaps she just lacks the capacity to properly interpret what she wrote.


Either way, meaning is important. What is language if not a collection of sounds and/or symbols ordered in such a way as to represent very specific meanings? If we ignore those meanings can we really have any basis for communication?


The philosophy department at Bethel University, where I did my undergrad work, has a blog.  On it, one of the professors (I know not which) says it perfectly in a post regarding David Hume: "One of the most irritating expressions tossed about by students and other would-be disputants is that a problem is really "just semantics." Besides denigrating the worthy field of semantics, it is often misused for problems that are not really about the meaning of words but about concepts. And, most frustratingly, it seems motivated by the twin evils of carelessness (in the use of terms) and laziness (in working through an issue under debate)."

All that to say this: arguing semantics is good and many times necessary in order to share in meaningful conversation.  Don't shy away from it!