![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Logic And Semantics
Mar. 27th, 2020 02:15 amBack in college, quite a few standard non-major (but required for the 4-year degree) classes were surprise hits, in other words, I found them to be very memorable and helpful along life's path (which I guess is as it should be, if college is taken as actual learning and not just a key to an administrative position somewhere).
Sociology, Civics, MacroEconomics, Theater, Fitness&Health, ....all of these come to mind as contributing a lot in both concept and practice.
And one that particularly sticks out with its generous guidance was Logic&Semantics.
Even a few of its subtle points run through my mind just about every day, such as the erroneous yet commonly mistaken phrasing, "not all of them are etc etc etc." You'd get a good verbal smackin' from the instructor if you were to use that :D ...and he'd remind us that the correct phrase is, "some of them are etc etc etc," because not all actually means none, but it's still a huge error in day to day speech and writing, not too differently from the confusion between insure and ensure... or should of vs should have... the mistake is just a common infraction that many don't even catch, and perhaps it's often seen as not worth bothering over the minutia of it.
And mom also used to be in smackin' mood if one used "different than" instead of "different from" so I'd get the nudges at home too.
Getting back to the L&S class, one of the most profound series of lectures was the exposure of Fallacies used in discussion, and giving us the skills to pick out the violations and unfair uses of language to skirt issues and cloud a decision making process. At the time, I think we only had a list of about 30 of these to memorize.
Now with the advent of the internet era, I've found lots of pages with variations on this list, and the inclusion of additional fallacies of which to be wary.
And so, if it piques your interest and you find yourself wanting to spend some of these shelter-in-place hours exploring the murk of malfeasant argumentation, this could help protect you when the bad guys sling their arrows of elocutive confusion towards you, or even into the public arena... you'll be able to raise a hand and holler, "I know what you're up to, varmint!" :}
Here's a link to one of the finest collections I've found.... I hope you enjoy!
Sociology, Civics, MacroEconomics, Theater, Fitness&Health, ....all of these come to mind as contributing a lot in both concept and practice.
And one that particularly sticks out with its generous guidance was Logic&Semantics.
Even a few of its subtle points run through my mind just about every day, such as the erroneous yet commonly mistaken phrasing, "not all of them are etc etc etc." You'd get a good verbal smackin' from the instructor if you were to use that :D ...and he'd remind us that the correct phrase is, "some of them are etc etc etc," because not all actually means none, but it's still a huge error in day to day speech and writing, not too differently from the confusion between insure and ensure... or should of vs should have... the mistake is just a common infraction that many don't even catch, and perhaps it's often seen as not worth bothering over the minutia of it.
And mom also used to be in smackin' mood if one used "different than" instead of "different from" so I'd get the nudges at home too.
Getting back to the L&S class, one of the most profound series of lectures was the exposure of Fallacies used in discussion, and giving us the skills to pick out the violations and unfair uses of language to skirt issues and cloud a decision making process. At the time, I think we only had a list of about 30 of these to memorize.
Now with the advent of the internet era, I've found lots of pages with variations on this list, and the inclusion of additional fallacies of which to be wary.
And so, if it piques your interest and you find yourself wanting to spend some of these shelter-in-place hours exploring the murk of malfeasant argumentation, this could help protect you when the bad guys sling their arrows of elocutive confusion towards you, or even into the public arena... you'll be able to raise a hand and holler, "I know what you're up to, varmint!" :}
Here's a link to one of the finest collections I've found.... I hope you enjoy!
