> it cannot possibly mean A and not-A at the same time.
Here's an old joke:
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his English class one day. 'In English,'
he said, 'A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as
Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language
wherein a double positive can form a negative.'
A voice from the back of the room piped up, 'Yeah, right.'
> no matter which definition one chooses, a word cannot simultaneously mean what people think it means, and the opposite of what people think it means, at the same time.
A word can have multiple meanings, and those meanings can be related, or unrelated, or contradictory, or anything in between. When a person uses a word, usually they intend one of those meanings, but you can also intend multiple meanings at the same time—thus double entendres. You can also say something, but mean something different, or even the opposite—thus irony and sarcasm.
> And some words have technical meanings that are contradicted by popular usage, like "theory" in science. Many people think "theory" means "hunch" -- "but it's just a theory, you know?" In science, theory has a specific meaning contradicted by the everyday understanding.
"Theory" has multiple meanings, some of which people are unfamiliar with. But their understanding isn't wrong, they just don't know the meaning that the speaker intends.
> synchronization has a specific meaning that many people don't know.
Synchronization has multiple meanings—thus why we have post after post arguing about which is correct.
> This misunderstanding causes them to lose their music collections.
Here's an old joke:
> no matter which definition one chooses, a word cannot simultaneously mean what people think it means, and the opposite of what people think it means, at the same time.A word can have multiple meanings, and those meanings can be related, or unrelated, or contradictory, or anything in between. When a person uses a word, usually they intend one of those meanings, but you can also intend multiple meanings at the same time—thus double entendres. You can also say something, but mean something different, or even the opposite—thus irony and sarcasm.
> And some words have technical meanings that are contradicted by popular usage, like "theory" in science. Many people think "theory" means "hunch" -- "but it's just a theory, you know?" In science, theory has a specific meaning contradicted by the everyday understanding.
"Theory" has multiple meanings, some of which people are unfamiliar with. But their understanding isn't wrong, they just don't know the meaning that the speaker intends.
> synchronization has a specific meaning that many people don't know.
Synchronization has multiple meanings—thus why we have post after post arguing about which is correct.
> This misunderstanding causes them to lose their music collections.
This, I agree with you about.