The North PacificBoard

Yeah, words only have the meaning we assign them—that’s what ‘defining’ is. But people will assign different meanings to words based on their subjective opinion, and these meanings often stray from what is objectively ‘correct.’ I suppose the Nazi=disagree thing is a straw man to some small degree but it still does function as an example of a much larger phenomenon that supports my argument. It is still evidence. If it was the only thing I said, it would be a straw man, but in this case it is effectively being used to prove a point. I could list further examples, including misuse of the word ‘ironic’ or the phrases ‘could care less’ or ‘lucked out’ and they would not be straw men anymore because they fall under a larger principle. They are still relevant, and what else would I be able to use to support my argument that words are misused besides examples of words being misused??

That is mostly irrelevant anyway. Look, yes, words function based off of the definitions their creators and users give them, but in many cases their creators’ definitions, or official defintions should be prioritized over their users’ because the public can still misuse words. Just because “words only have the meaning we assign them” does not mean that some meanings they are assigned are incorrect, especially since there are multiple people assign them their meanings, often warped to their own ideals—and words HAVE to have meanings in order to function! It doesn’t make sense to claim “words exist, therefore people can use them however they want and be correct.” It doesn’t prove anything because people wouldn’t be able to use words if words didn’t have meanings!

And I realize this might be another straw man, but what you are saying, regardless of the vernacular part, would mean that I could say “jet jumps nose big hurriedly water Jacob” would make sense and be usable if I assigned the following definitions: jet means I, jumps means like, nose means to, big means watch, hurriedly means television, water means on, and Jacob means Fridays.

And the whole “words only have the meaning(s) we assign them” raises the entire headache of—because humans invent words, and all humans are subjective, nothing anybody ever says can actually be a fact because their users invent what they mean, and all that would matter is if the claim is mostly regarded as fact by the majority. But then again, people are subjective, so like I said earlier the majority could be objectively wrong. Based on one’s opinion, every political election could be an example of this.

Every single thing somebody could say is technically an opinion because the words they’re using were given their definitions by a means of opinion. “People use their legs to walk” is an opinion because each of those words could have very well ended up with a different common definition. “The sentence, ‘people use their legs to walk’ is a fact” is also an opinion. Everything I’m saying right now would be opinions even if 100% of people agree with me, making my claims effectively facts but still not technically facts.

See, it just becomes a stupid time-wasting conversation at this point. But I believe your point was that words are open to interpretation, which is obviously true, but you also implied the most often followed interpretation will always be objectively correct, which is not true. *Sometimes* the commonly-accepted definition can be correct, but not always. Then again, correctness is also up to interpretation! See, because it’s impossible for people to be entirely objective, it’s just a huge paradox.

I had never heard of this person before today. At first I was only defending them because I enjoyed reading their conversation with another person, and then somebody else insulted them out of nowhere for no reason. I have continued defending them because I agree with their actions and statements; that doesn’t mean I knew them beforehand.

If I meet someone who likes Roger Federer, and then side with them in a debate about Roger Federer, that doesn’t mean I’ve known that person for a long time.

Do you see my point? You haven’t even been here for more than one day. If you had been here earlier you would have been able to see that I never knew this person. You’re wrong to say I always defend this person because I literally haven’t known them for over 99.99% of my life. You only believe what you said because today was the first day you’ve been here, so all you’ve been able to see is me “defending” this person.