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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,773 |
Thanks, belligerentyouth for the link. The discussion of color perception and language reminded me of a puzzler which has bothered me for years: Why, do you suppose, is pastel red such a significant color in English that it has its own term, "pink," while other pastels are merely called pastel yellow, pastel blue ....
And of troy, you are absolutely right about "autism" being a spot on a bell curve. "Autism" itself encompasses conditions which can be described on a bell curve, from profound autism to those we merely think a bit odd in some respects, and that curve fits in turn into a larger curve describing a larger portion of humanity. I have contemplated whether certain other family members would have been classified as autistic had they had more profound language difficulties. My own son's form, hyperlexia, has a couple of quirks, such as a tendency to large size (used by one nuerologist as a diagnostic tool). He was 23" long and 10 lbs 4 oz at birth, and hasn't looked back.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
In reply to:
He was 23" long and 10 lbs 4 oz at birth...
Please extend my sympathies to your wife.
Ouch.
P.S. My apologies... Sparteye corrected me that my sympathies are better extended to *her*. Funny the assumptions one makes from a gender-neutral log-in identity ~ 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
prejudice make us want to tighten up the bell curve, and bring the extremes closer to the mean– but I think the human reality is a very broad flat curve.. with extremes very far from the mean– and still part of the continuum.
Naming things is one way we enforce our prejudices.
Helen, you have spoken the truth, esp. that last sentence.
We've had many discussions on politically-incorrect names and why they are incorrect, so it isn't necessary for me to go into that here. Some of our name-calling is deliberately hurtful, and some is not. (And, incidentally, this doesn't need to be actual name-calling to be hurtful--it can be simply an association with something negative.)
Humanity is indeed a broad curve of variations. I think it would be very interesting to read (I'm not suggesting a new thread, just wondering if there have been studies done that are available) what a number of individuals define as
"normal". I'd bet money that no two would match!
I would like to add, however, that prejudice isn't
necessarily the only reason we'd like others to be like ourselves (or vice versa, more commonly, perhaps?). Fear can play a part in this, too, though I suppose fear really is at the root of prejudices, if we but admit it.
I wonder, sometimes, if we'll ever figure ourselves out:
on the one hand, we want to be "like" everybody else; yet on the other, we want recognition/rewards for some of the things that make us different from everyone else!
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 771 |
In reply to:
I think it would be very interesting to read (I'm not suggesting a new thread, just wondering if there have been studies done that are available) what a number of individuals define as
"normal".
I recently read a quote... "The only normal people are the ones you don't know." Can't recall who said it, but clearly it was someone wise ~
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
I asked a variant of this question (the original topic) of Steven Pinker tonight - check the transcript if interested.
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 13,803 |
I resurrect this thread (on its anniversary) not only for its relevancy to the twist taken in Dr. Bill's Fabulous Word List thread in I&A but because I wanted to comment on Bobyb's observation:
The French "vous" used for a polite form is the plural, but it didn't come to be the polite singular form the same way the English plural came to be used for singular. It comes from the old practice of Highly-placed Persons referring to themselves in the plural ("We are not amused") and their inferiors addressing them in the plural.
This is exactly the way Shakespeare used the words thou/thee and ye/you. Read his plays and notice that when people are speaking up (e.g., peasant to lord or lord to king) they use ye/you but when speaking down they use thou/thee.
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