I agree. A pagan was a country person and is from the same root as the word “peasant”, “Paysan” in French. The Greeks called non-Greeks hoi barbaroi, people who couldn’t speak properly, from which we get the word barbarian.
The Romans had to deal with the German tribes who were pretty unpleasant, probably something like modern Somalia or the Tribal Areas of Pakistan/Afghanistan. But the Germans were not “primitive” people; they had a culture, just a very violent one.
Jesus! talk about sliding the goalposts all over the field. It’s the Crocodile Dundee response, “That’s not a knife, this is a knife”.
Ferocity and brutality are not reliant on education, race, nor only on numbers. A single animal is capable of ferocity and brutality to another regardless of its intelligence, species or place in history. I’d wager that if you travelled back in time and met a Neanderthal face to face he’d sooner stave your head in than offer you some of his meat.
I think anthropologists and linguists would suggest to you that it is you who are writing nonsense.
Sure, the amount of meanings increase over time. This is not unusual.
Who are “we”? This I disagree with. Just because new meanings are devised does not invalidate the previous ones. I notice a curious insistence when people exclaim that “Words can mean more than one thing!” as a reason for their own usage, but then revert to a singular “That’s not what it means!” as a critique of my usage. Anyway, so long as people can define their terms in discussion and make them known, communication still works just the same.
Oftentimes it does.
Re; ‘Savage’, I used the term in its commonly understood form. You’re the one who brought up the meaning “from the forests”, which is not a meaning that is used anymore in any dictionary, apart from historical reference to the original root. So am I to define each and every word I use, even to the point of making note that i’m not using it in its original unused meaning?
Hardly. Adverb (1175-1225; Middle English; Old English heardlice)
Linguists? Since when was linguistics about dictionary definitions?
Is English your first language? I am beginning to doubt it.
Your idea that ‘ferocity’ and ‘brutality’ are words dependent on scale, race and intelligence is what is linguistic nonsense. It falls under the broad spectrum of semantics.
Funny attempt at an insult? Very poor. Must try harder next time.
Eh? Lots and lots of native American, African, Australian, and Pacific cultures stood up to the white invaders. It’s just that they all eventually lost, because the white invaders had guns and enthusiastic diseases.
Colonialism was an atrocity, but don’t perpetuate the silly “noble savage” routine where the natives were all sitting around peacefully communing with nature until the Europeans invented war. We–humanity–are vicious, tribalistic apes, and always have been, no matter what color our skin is. European technology only increased the scale.
The etymology is interesting, but I don’t see how it’s relevant to this discussion. Lots and lots of words meant something different a thousand years ago, but these days “savage” can be found in any English dictionary, and none of them define it as simply “from the forests.”
We’re having this discussion because you tried to correct Pixleshifter’s definition of “savage.”
It can be deduced even by simply looking at the word itself…
Not at all, I offered the definition I was using, one of several possible choices. Pixleshifter was the one who insisted that the word has only one correct definition.
The discipline of semantics involves us each being able to help people to understand what we mean by what we say, rather than all taking things for granted and jumping to conclusions. Rather than a diversion from the discussion which calls attention to itself, I think such a process is really the foundation of any meaningful discussion. Especially in a forum like this when there are hundreds of diverse people with different experiences from all over the world.I think that it is bound to be more productive then us all simply assuming that we must somehow naturally know what each other all mean.
Please point out where I ‘insisted’ on this.
This conversation chain happened:
If I–to pick a deliberately ambiguous example–comment on a picture of a purple sky at sunset with “look at this beautiful indigo sunset,” and you say “Indigo simply means ‘blue,’ named for the natural dye of that color,” then any modern English speaker will read that as you saying “I perceive that you believe indigo to be purple, which is wrong, and I wish to correct you.” Yes, “indigo” has multiple meanings, but it was quite clear from context which one I intended, and there was no visible reason for you to steer the conversation to etymology unless you meant to challenge that intended meaning. I think you might honestly not be aware of this,* and I’m hoping to help you avoid future offense and miscommunication.
*As opposed to Kupfernigk, who was the first one to even use the word “savage” in this conversation, so it was disingenuous of them to pretend they didn’t know what Pixleshifter meant by “savage” in a direct response.
I wasn’t expecting this sort of Spanish Inquisition!
My dear @PhasmaFelis,
I’m not quite sure what I have done wrong, and having read your magisterial post I’m still not really completely sure what point you are trying to make, unless it is that you are much, much more clever than the rest of us.
Are you trying to say that @pixleshifter tried to deflect the argument from anthropology to etymology? Because if so, I would agree.
More a case of de haut en bas I feel. Back to the age of 14 and my English teacher saying “Kupfernigk, you call this an English essay?” - but she did have a first from Newnham.
Next time I can just go straight to “fuck off, trolley” instead of trying to be helpful, if you prefer.
No, I’m saying you did that.
What I prefer is for us to be able to put our respective definitions out there without having done so derailing the whole conversation. When people follow up my brief paragraph or two with twenty more, pressing me to defend my definition, or complaining that mine denies them theirs, simply blows something which need not be a problem out of proportion. If people insist on terms being defined unilaterally, this suggests that getting their own point across is more important than actually communicating.
And no, I don’t think of somebody joking to illustrate this as being trolling.
If you don’t want people to complain that you’re denying their definition, then don’t say things that any other English speaker will understand as you denying their definition.
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