You certainly gave us a lot to chew on....I am divided between thinking "comfort food" is totally about guilt because we happened to have learned it is not physically good for us, or perhaps that it also originates from feeling the slight physical harm of it and lack of nutrition. But it strikes me as not something we would have to explain away, not something we would have to call "comfort food," if we were only speaking for ourselves and truth, and not to other people.
You use "yell" and "scream" in the same list toward the end of the blog. Is there any difference between them? Both certainly project anger, so from that standpoint, there is no difference. Reading someone the riot act can involve either yelling at them or screaming at them. It is true that we don't yell out of fear, while we do scream out of fear. Yelling more seems the part of the active party, screaming of the receiving and reacting party. But yelling is not necessarily calculated; people do say, "I lost my temper and yelled at her."
And where would "shout" come into this equation? (Which I now see you also use.) I don't see distance between shouting and yelling, although to say "twist and yell" would sound very weird. The shouting in "twist and shout" is for joy, I believe, a very unusual connotation for the signified.
Although it does seem like there should be a word that captures the underlying emotion when someone is excited and happy at a meal and raises his voice too loud. For that, we just say we raised our voice. We wouldn't say we were yelling. Odd that yelling, screaming, and shouting seem designed as if for one word, when they can refer to any length of increased-volume expression. (Although I would say the longer the yelling/screaming/shouting goes on, the harder it is to endure. How many loud words equal the same number of soft words?)
Ah good questions!! First off in my head yelling has a target: yelling at someone is raising your voice beyond reason to be heard. Same as shout tho shout has less inherent anger and implies some distance physically (to me) - while screaming is a loss of control and more likely a solo event. So when you scream you’re letting off tension and anger and yes fear. And the other point you made even more fascinating because in my conflicts with people often one or the other says “stop yelling” and the reply is “im not yelling, you’re yelling” which implies both parties have raised their voices but neither is aware of that fact or is doing it intentionally. Maybe that is a good time to both take a short pause and resume the conflict at a quieter volume.
We are on the same page. I would tentatively propose that no two words really have identical meaning, and also propose that that are important implications of that for writers and editors.
At the same time, we can certainly be attuned to nuance, because when you hear a newsperson talking, it is also possible to anticipate the exact word they are going to use.
I batted around the question of synonyms some more on Monday as I worked out and was enjoying myself very much. I wondered whether this thesis of word independence applied to every part of speech? To nouns as well as verbs, adjectives, and adverbs? I decided that it did.
The reason that I questioned nouns was in thinking of proper nouns. Like, right now I am reading the novel "Arthur & George." When George Edalji is in prison, he is known as D462-7. George and D462-7 have the same meaning. They are the same. But I think what happens with language aside from names is that we need words to apply to more than one thing or situation, things which, by definition, cannot really be the same, that cover more than one signified. And so, in this grouping that we do, each word that we use to cover the cases inevitably also comes to differ. Our job as people invested in an using a language is to perceive exactly how these groups work, or a word's definition.
your comment makes me wonder at people whose names sound different in their native languages - do they to some extent feel different depending on the pronunciation of their name like your character with George and D462-7?
I'm sure that they do. I think what we are discussing here is really what one part of the effort to get people to be non-racist and non-sexist has been about, not in an Ibram X. Kendi way, but in the simplest sense. Minority ethnicities and women have been looked down upon, but sentient people have said, "Wait a second, actually, there is no difference." The identity is the same, and "woman", for many questions at hand, just a container. D462-7 isn't inherently a less pleasing name than George, but because we know what it represents, it becomes that, and affects our feelings if it is the name we are called.
Your old Medium article about having a name others couldn't easily pronounce or remember made an impression on me, so when I started as a middle school long-term substitute teacher in 2022, I read it to the class to try to break the ice on my second day. But as usual, the kids would not shut up and had no idea what was going on or what I was trying to do. So any faint hopes that it would connect and be my salvation were disappointed.
You certainly gave us a lot to chew on....I am divided between thinking "comfort food" is totally about guilt because we happened to have learned it is not physically good for us, or perhaps that it also originates from feeling the slight physical harm of it and lack of nutrition. But it strikes me as not something we would have to explain away, not something we would have to call "comfort food," if we were only speaking for ourselves and truth, and not to other people.
You use "yell" and "scream" in the same list toward the end of the blog. Is there any difference between them? Both certainly project anger, so from that standpoint, there is no difference. Reading someone the riot act can involve either yelling at them or screaming at them. It is true that we don't yell out of fear, while we do scream out of fear. Yelling more seems the part of the active party, screaming of the receiving and reacting party. But yelling is not necessarily calculated; people do say, "I lost my temper and yelled at her."
And where would "shout" come into this equation? (Which I now see you also use.) I don't see distance between shouting and yelling, although to say "twist and yell" would sound very weird. The shouting in "twist and shout" is for joy, I believe, a very unusual connotation for the signified.
Although it does seem like there should be a word that captures the underlying emotion when someone is excited and happy at a meal and raises his voice too loud. For that, we just say we raised our voice. We wouldn't say we were yelling. Odd that yelling, screaming, and shouting seem designed as if for one word, when they can refer to any length of increased-volume expression. (Although I would say the longer the yelling/screaming/shouting goes on, the harder it is to endure. How many loud words equal the same number of soft words?)
Ah good questions!! First off in my head yelling has a target: yelling at someone is raising your voice beyond reason to be heard. Same as shout tho shout has less inherent anger and implies some distance physically (to me) - while screaming is a loss of control and more likely a solo event. So when you scream you’re letting off tension and anger and yes fear. And the other point you made even more fascinating because in my conflicts with people often one or the other says “stop yelling” and the reply is “im not yelling, you’re yelling” which implies both parties have raised their voices but neither is aware of that fact or is doing it intentionally. Maybe that is a good time to both take a short pause and resume the conflict at a quieter volume.
We are on the same page. I would tentatively propose that no two words really have identical meaning, and also propose that that are important implications of that for writers and editors.
not to mention communication between any two human beings!
At the same time, we can certainly be attuned to nuance, because when you hear a newsperson talking, it is also possible to anticipate the exact word they are going to use.
I batted around the question of synonyms some more on Monday as I worked out and was enjoying myself very much. I wondered whether this thesis of word independence applied to every part of speech? To nouns as well as verbs, adjectives, and adverbs? I decided that it did.
The reason that I questioned nouns was in thinking of proper nouns. Like, right now I am reading the novel "Arthur & George." When George Edalji is in prison, he is known as D462-7. George and D462-7 have the same meaning. They are the same. But I think what happens with language aside from names is that we need words to apply to more than one thing or situation, things which, by definition, cannot really be the same, that cover more than one signified. And so, in this grouping that we do, each word that we use to cover the cases inevitably also comes to differ. Our job as people invested in an using a language is to perceive exactly how these groups work, or a word's definition.
your comment makes me wonder at people whose names sound different in their native languages - do they to some extent feel different depending on the pronunciation of their name like your character with George and D462-7?
I'm sure that they do. I think what we are discussing here is really what one part of the effort to get people to be non-racist and non-sexist has been about, not in an Ibram X. Kendi way, but in the simplest sense. Minority ethnicities and women have been looked down upon, but sentient people have said, "Wait a second, actually, there is no difference." The identity is the same, and "woman", for many questions at hand, just a container. D462-7 isn't inherently a less pleasing name than George, but because we know what it represents, it becomes that, and affects our feelings if it is the name we are called.
Your old Medium article about having a name others couldn't easily pronounce or remember made an impression on me, so when I started as a middle school long-term substitute teacher in 2022, I read it to the class to try to break the ice on my second day. But as usual, the kids would not shut up and had no idea what was going on or what I was trying to do. So any faint hopes that it would connect and be my salvation were disappointed.
Hmm, some depression, some expression.