THE WORD
What is a word?
1. First approach - A word is a meaningful part of speech.
It must be meaningful. Without a meaning, we couldn't convey anything when speaking.
Let's put the case. You say: "He flew over the Arpantic". What does Arpantic mean? Nothing. I mean, this word is pure sound without meaning. What if you mean an ocean? You can't, because no ocean called like that is existing and known. How can we say Arpantic doesn't mean anything? Because this word is nowhere, it is not listed in dictionaries and nobody knows what that sound means.
What do we need (to have a meaningful part of speech)? That word must be previously and socially accepted, before being pronounced. Can we coin words? We're free to do it, but those new words cannot be thought to exist before the acceptance within the community of speakers (e.g., England for English, China for Mandarin, and so on). Therefore, what happens after saying: "flying over the Arpantic"? The other will ask me about that word, because he can't understand what I meant by that. He'll say: "What is Arpantic?" or "What do you mean by Arpantic?". If you haven't got any explanation, your sentence remains deprived of meaning.
A word is an element of speech, which necessarily conveys a meaning. This meaning must be corresponding to the pattern described here below.
2. Second approach - A word is a sound or a group of sounds that communicates a meaning and can be graphically represented.
We learned that it is a sound. This means that every word must have a possible emission by speakers. This emission spits out a sound that we learned at a certain point of our life. There are elementary sounds, such as home, mother, ball, air, sky, and composite ones, such as reminiscence, hectic, girdle. The first ones are likely to be acquired early in the life. The second ones after years of primary and high school, while watching the TV or reading a book.
Can they be graphically represented ? Yes, because our ancestors invented a set of letters for every geographical or linguistic area, that was called 'alphabet'.
I made this introduction because we needed a clear idea of what we call 'word'. We've just learned that every word was a sound, at first. Even 'advice', when the first man used it in English many centuries ago, was a sound already existing. It went on to become a word only after some practice. There were other people repeating that sound, meaning a specific concept, though this couldn't necessarily be a quick procedure. After a number of years, another group fixed that sound with concept (=word) in a book, called 'dictionary'. It was written there that 'advice' means 'wise opinion'. Why so? Because a lot of English-speaking people used to repeat that sound having for them the meaning of 'wise opinion'. This means that sound was being finally accepted as a word, not only as a sound. Not all sounds are 'words'. OK? 'Internet' was existent as a sound five centuries ago, but it wasn't a word yet. Today it is also a word.
If somebody says: "I'd like to thank Elton John for coming' it means that nine words (not nine sounds) were pronounced to convey a meaning (=somebody is grateful for Elton John's presence) that can be understood by the whole community of national speakers. If somebody says: "I'd like to thank Elton John for the music I've enjoyed', it means that Elton John has played or produced music. Everybody can verify the concept by checking his presence or just by listening to his music somewhere. We cannot say: "We'd like to thank John Hurst for his music' if his music is nowhere to be found. Here's the point. If I said that I'd like to thank one that doesn't exist I couldn't do it, of course, because this person is not real (=there's none of us able to find this person). So, either I'd be speaking of reality (Elton John) or I'd be speaking of unreal things (a would-be singer, named John Hurst).
When I speak of unreal things (Cinderella, but also Arpantic) it doesn't matter what you think about that. It doesn't matter how many believe in the existence of somebody or something non-existent, because the existence of any object is a condition not depending on the people's thought. I may be the greatest believer in the world. If the thing you're talking about doesn't exist, your belief leads to nowhere. To connect every sound with something real we need a path going from the word to a slice of reality (=to what we are able to show, when asked about that). "What is Arpantic?". If I said it is an ocean I'd need a map or a dictionary having that ocean written or designed somewhere. "What is Atlantic?" Here you'll see people with their fingers on maps or dictionaries.
After remaining with a concept or an idea (for instance, God) that cannot be verified what can we do? We can only go back to the roots. Why did they say 'God' at first? What did they really mean by that word?
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ok if or if you did not read all that it was about The word "god" i beleive in god and he does exist. if any of you would read the whole bible. you would understand most of the post in this thread.
[img]http://img201.exs.cx/img201/7928/milton3bq.jpg[/img]
- level 16 maghawk432-