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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Olympian brainstorm no. 1: meaning as friction

Why did I pack an Olympia SF and a MacBook Pro to bring to a dance competition in Tennessee, where my daughter is performing in five numbers? So that at idle moments I could take the time to reflect via typewriter, and share the results with the typosphere. (I've also typed up a couple of Insurgency cards, for those special occasions.) Here's the first brainstorm, for whatever it's worth; the next will come online in a couple of days.

9 comments:

  1. Something to think about, for sure.
    The Olympia SF seems to be a good travel typewriter, is it as light as a Hermes Baby or perhaps a bit heavier?

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    1. A bit heavier, I'd say, but I much prefer its feel to that of the Baby. Others would vote differently.

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    2. Thanks for the info. I'm not a fan of the feel of the Hermes Baby either.

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  2. That's an interesting insight. Communication is an interesting thing.

    I've often had people, when engaged in some discourse or debate, appeal to a dictionary. Such people are usually unaware of the distinction between addressing a thing de re, and addressing a thing de dicto. Most people seem to think that a dictionary defines the true nature of a thing, when all it does is offer us the many ways in which a term is conventionally used. But a dictionary can speak to neither the telos nor the ontology of a thing in itself. (Of course, I'm not suggesting a dictionary can't give us insight into how a term is or was used, or how it is or was understood. It can indeed tell us how people use a term, but it can't tell us if their understanding of the thing to which the term references is correct.)

    In any case, I find people often speak past past one another because of a failure to precisely define terms. It doesn't matter whether people use an old or a new definition of a term, as long as they're being clear about which definition they're employing. Without such clarity of understanding, communication becomes difficult if not impossible.

    And that Olympia is cool, too! ;-)

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    1. I think the near impossibility of understanding can be joy too. You get it a lot with a humourous retort. Not always knowing whether the under person knew what I meant by what I said.

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  3. That SF is identical to my older daughters'. It is a fun machine to work on with all of those precision German parts under the hood.

    Words and evolving languages are interesting. We just got back from a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream. Viewing a Shakespeare play is a great reminder that petrified languages are no fun.

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    1. LOL -- funny thing is, if you can actually understand what's being said, the writing is quite witty.

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  4. Actually, I think that the Olympia above is a Splendid! I think that the SF was actually created to replace the Splendid Series, and I've seen some Splendids without 33, 66, or 99 badges.

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    1. Thanks, Matt. You may be right, or maybe Splendid is just a name for a certain kind of SF. I don't have information on this other than tw-db.com.

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