I am at the part of semantics course, where I've learned:

John is sure that it is raining = SURE(j, RAIN)

And

John is not sure that it is raining = ¬SURE(j, RAIN)

But what if the sentence is something like "John is not very sure it is raining." Or "It is not likely that it is raining"?

Do you just ignore the "very" and "likely"?

So the two examples above would just be "¬SURE(j, RAIN)" and "¬RAIN" respectively?

Or is there some other way of writing these into formulas?

What about Pinterest? And YouTube? Who defines what social media is and entails? We get into muddy waters when trying to classify things by saying “if you can comment and reply then it’s social media because what you’re doing is a social activity requiring two or more people.”

But then does that make iMessage social media? Or blog posts and articles where people can leave a comment below? Or emails?

My people, how do we make sense of this and settle it once for all?

Does “you’re wrong” mean the same thing as “I don’t think you’re right?”

Please explain!

I saw a thread here that’s now closed regarding the difference between undertone & overtone:

(https://www.reddit.com/r/EnglishLearning/comments/kdyufx/difference_and_definition_of_undertone_vs_overtone)

The top answer said to think of them as opposites. That is backwards. The two words are nearly synonymous & can be used interchangeably.

If you wanted to say that something has say religious connotations, you can say that it has either religious overtones or religious undertones.

When referring to language (& not music):

Overtone: a secondary effect, quality, or meaning : SUGGESTION, CONNOTATION

Undertone: a quality (as of emotion) underlying the surface of an utterance or action : OVERTONE, TINGE

From a lot of sources ive read the wild west spanned sometime in the civil war ubtil the last few western territories were admitted. But what about the era that encapsulated daniel boone, lewis and clark and other frontiersmen. Is that still considered the wild west or is there a more accurate identifier for such a period?

😧

I heard comedian Tim Minchin mention the phrase "was filled with pigeon" in his song/beat poem "Storm". I might have misunderstood the word "pigeon" - he may have said something that sounded like "pigeon". But anyway, I was curious as to the meaning of the phrase. From the context, I think it means "made annoyed" or someone "got his ire".

Thanks in advance.

Please share your thoughts and feelings if sometimes can refer to a singular exception.

    Word games around “ woman “. 

Word games around “ woman “. Feel free to contribute.

 Woman

   Woo
   Woe 
   Ow
   Whoa
   Whew
   Uuu
   
     Woman is a woeful pain/painful woe. woe and ow combination.
     Woo, man! functions like a command prompt for courtship rituals.
     Whoa, man! - surprise and admiration/ receiving advice to slow or stop action- might be related to woo command prompt. 
      Uuu, man! - related to predatory male gaze/whistling women in the streets/burden and tribulations of having an attractive female partner etc.
       Whew, man - expressing surprise/barely avoiding something life threatening or damaging - again might be related to wooing command prompt.
     



 

I've found that the term "crush" is often used to designate the feelings of attraction that a person has for another, but there doesnt seem to be a clear definition. It seems to characterize the "gray zone" between feeling sexually neutral and love towards someone, but it has always bothered me how few terms there are to describe these feelings. Dating is a billion dollar industry, hollywood is obsessed with stories about falling in love, but we havent developed a rich vocabulary to communicate these feelings? It's great that we reserved the word "love" for when you feel committed to the relationship, but until that point we have resorted to "crush", "like", "like like", and "it's complicated". Why so little?

In particular, I was thinking about this because I feel there should be a different word between having a crush on someone you know personally (a developed and "informed" feeling) versus having a crush on somebody you only ever "see around" (a relatively baseless feeling) like somebody in your class that you see often but havent necessarily spoken to. How would you go about expressing one without also drawing the distinction against the other?

Not sure if this belongs here, but. Why do people use Americans when only referring U.S. citizens? Isn't anyone who live in the Americas an American? Is this semantics?

In logic, it seems to me that we often talk about soundness in two ways and I’m not sure how they fit together, especially when you throw completeness in the mix.

I’m going to define the terms based on my understanding (maybe someone much brighter than me can point out I have a simple misunderstanding of the terms!), then I’ll ask my question/confusion:

1. Soundness: An argument is said to be sound iff the all of the premises are true and it is valid. This definition allows us to identify problems in arguments that are deductively valid but are semantically off. In other words, even if the conclusion follows from the premises (the argument follows the rules of inference), when there is at least one false premise, the argument is said to be unsound.

2. Soundness*: A logical system is said to be Sound if everything provable (in the deductive system/syntax) is truth-preserving (in the semantics). It follows that if soundness* holds for the system, it holds for all of the arguments within it.

3. Completeness: A logical system is said to be Complete if everything that is truth-preserving (in the semantics) is provable (in the deductive system/syntax). It follows that if completeness holds for the system, it holds for all of the arguments within it.

We know that 2. and 3. have been proven for (classical) logic both for propositional and predicate logic (I spent a painful but interesting semester doing these proofs)!

My question is: IF (classical) logic is sound* and complete, then how could there be an argument that is deductively valid in but not sound (which we use 1. soundness to refer to)?

Are we just using different concepts for soundness? Or am I missing something?

This is a turn-of-phrase that seems to be enjoying massively increasing currency in the USA, & it's quite a subtle one … it occurs in polite, but urgent, requests (so urgent as to be prettymuch a demand , really, but still couched politely while the person it's addressed to has not shown any sign of being difficult about it) such as, for-instance

“is it alright if I take a look in there, real quick?” :

& it indicates, not necessarily that the person requesting will be real quick about it (but probably will be @least fairly quick about it), but rather something like

“I mean to do this, & I fully expect that you aren't going to try to prevent me or in anyway cause trouble or make a scene about it” .

Why is the terminology “boiled alive” used to describe being boiled to death, logically it should be “boiled dead” because “boiled” is the process, “dead” is the end product. If the lobster was truly boiled alive it should still be alive when the process is finished. What it sounds like is that you’re boiling something to bring it back to life, which is inaccurate. I understand how the terminology is used, but am I crazy for thinking about this?!?

Is something “returned” when it is sent or when it is received. If I borrow something and say I will return it in 30 days does that mean I will mail it back on the 30th day or they will receive it by the 30th day?

I have a question on what the phrase “2 months to December” means.

Does it mean the 2 months that lead to the start of December?

What about when I say that some one is “2 months to 16”.

Does that mean they are 15 years and 10 months?

**Can I use the preposition “to” in this way? Is that correct?

Shouldn’t it be good young times

When someone makes a mistake or does something unintentionally that my husband doesn't like, my husband says, that persom "pulled that stunt." Like once we were all at a community carnival and my parents were there, too. My husband wanted to leave, but my mom really quickly pulled me to one of the stalls to show me some outfits she thought i might like, which she had been wanting to show me for a while. I ended up buying one. My husband later called that, "the stunt your mom pulled."

Doesn't "pulling a stunt" imply intentional malice? Not an unintentional mistake?

I'm writing an essay and want to be somewhat pedantic aswell as waffle a bit. Does the argument that alive and dead are gradable antonyms because moribund is a word and technically falls between the two hold any water? Or is it rendered null and void because whilst moribund technically lies between the two one is still alive while moribund?

If X is the study of Y, than the study of Y is X, right?

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So if we define genetics as "the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms", and I partake in the study of these things, is that than... genetics? Wouldn't we than say "I'm studying genetics", rather than "I'm genetics"?

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Bc from what I understand is that every field of research that is being defined as the "study of..." is in reality the body (corpus) of knowledge [not absolute knowledge, oc], studies, laws, and hypothesis regarding...

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So according to that, genetics is the body of knowledge, studies, laws, and hypothesis regarding genes, genetic variation and heredity in organisms.

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Which virtually means the same thing as a theory in science, mathematics, music etc.

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We may as well equate evolutionary biology with evolutionary theory, or genetics with gene theory, or atomic physics with atomic theory (even though, non of these things are considered to be equal to the other. For instance, gene theory is a part of genetics)

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I obviously understand what is meant with all these terms, but I'm bothered for semantic reasons as - someone on the spectrum (y'all know which spectrum I mean...) - I care about accuracy of the words I'm using, especially in written form where I have no excuse to speak quickly.

Thoughts on the current definition of gender by Oxford Languages?

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Definition: the male sex or the female sex, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones, or one of a range of other identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.

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I believe this definition to be incorrect and, in fact, contradictory to the Oxford definition of sex. Which to me is absurd. It is not accurate to say that sex can be considered with reference to gender.

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Here is the explanation from the conclusion of my chat with ChatGPT about this matter:

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The part of the original definition provided that states "the male sex or the female sex, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones" is indeed incorrect, as it conflates the concepts of sex and gender.

Sex refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that distinguish males and females, while gender refers to the social and cultural roles, behaviors, and expectations that are associated with being male or female, as well as identities beyond the traditional binary of male and female.

While social and cultural factors can influence gender roles and expectations, they do not determine biological sex. Therefore, it is not accurate to say that sex can be considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones.

So, if you've got a game that's virtually the same on every platform, are they different games? If I beat Dark Souls on both XBox and PS3, have I beaten two games, or just one?

Conversely, what about games that are noticeably different on each platform? If I beat Final Fantasy on both NES and PSP, have I beaten two different games? Are they indisputably the same game because one is a remake of the other? If differences make it a different game, how many are needed? Where does one draw the line?

A new employee was hired in my office. I am the manager of the office. I approved the hiring of the employee. If I did not approve the hiring, they would not be employed at my office. My wife claims I hired the employee but I told her that is untrue, I didn't hire them, I approved the hiring of them. What do you think, did I hire them or not?

I can find information about 'side table'. But I can't find the origin or the term, 'side the table'. Where it means to clear the table of dishes. Forgive me if this is not the right subreddit.