Saturday, October 24, 2015

The meaning of words

Talking on RTE Radio 1 this morning about the meaning of words and phrases a professor of linguistics at Trinity College Dublin spoke about the importance of of words and phrases being understood. 

At one stage in the interview he said that words needed to be transparent. Do words not have meaning?

3 comments:

Andreas said...

What about the word 'Family' - most of us would imagine kids with mummy and daddy in relation to that word. But the legal definition of it would also include 2 lads being married!



Michael Commane said...

Oxford Dictionary - 'Members of a household, parents, children, servants etc.'
Not sure what you mean by the word 'lads'.

Andreas said...

I'm getting too Irish it looks like. I meant boy/man with 'lad'.
http://www.focloir.ie/en/dictionary/ei/lad?q=lads#lad__4

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