Category: Language
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The Problem of Naming
by Jason Stotts The fact that Venus is both the Morning Star and the Evening Star is something of a problem for some philosophers of language. I think Batman would have that same problem with this particular philosophical puzzle. This is one of my favorite CollegeHumor videos ever.
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Cis and Trans: Untangling Confusions
by Jason Stotts There is a new movement underfoot now, coming from the transsexual community, to rename non-transsexuals “cis-sexuals”. The name comes from a play with the Latin prefixes. The Latin prefix “trans-” means “across” and is used to signify that one’s gender is “across” (different than) one’s biological sex: that while one might be…
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Something that Annoys Me
by Jason Stotts It drives me crazy when people misuse acronyms and initialisms, especially ATM and PIN. The other day at a store, I cringed when I heard someone say “just enter your ATM machine PIN number”. It was all I could do to contain myself and not call them an idiot to their face.…