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Yep, that's the beauty of language....we can do
just about anything we want, but whether we'll be able to communicate with
people is a different matter. Theoretically, we could redefine every word
in our local language and be able to communicate, so long as we all
carried our dictionaries around with us. There seems to be one common
theme with this, which is that the closer we get to value-based, highly
personal, or controversial subject matter, the more diverse or
fuzzy become the definitions of terms and phrases. For instance,
although we could force ourselves to do this, we probably wouldn't spend a whole
discussion thread on what we mean by the term "red". Though, on a
painter's forum, they might very well do this, going into different
shades, whether burnt auburn is red, or whether certain shades are orange-red or
reddish-orange, etc.
So, how does one define "instrument" in this forum?
I'd say the number of definitions is about directly proportionate to the number
of people who would respond to that question...and then let the games begin!
(Language Games, that is).
Kris
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