Re:What Happens to #MeToo When a Feminist Is the Accused?
by kazinator on Tuesday August 14, 2018 @02:33PM
(#17760610)
> Isn't it entirely possible that a word can have different meanings in academic and non-academic circles?
It almost seems like rather the rule than the exception.
Outside of disciplines that produce precise documents (law, engineering, academics), most words do not even have well-defined meanings. People associate words with fuzzy clouds of meaning: their own personal ones, not the definitions from a dictionary. When they speak they crudely grope among these clouds of meaning to fetch the words that best approximate what they are trying to say.
It almost seems like rather the rule than the exception.
Outside of disciplines that produce precise documents (law, engineering, academics), most words do not even have well-defined meanings. People associate words with fuzzy clouds of meaning: their own personal ones, not the definitions from a dictionary. When they speak they crudely grope among these clouds of meaning to fetch the words that best approximate what they are trying to say.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocabulary#Degree_of_knowledge