Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Martin Shields <enkidu AT bigpond.net.au>]

On 27/06/2009, at 11:11 AM, K Randolph wrote:

> What it means in your dialect is irrelevant to standard English. Since
> this is a discussion about standard English, we must ignore your
> dialect. End of story.

Who speaks this "standard English"? Surely everyone's speech is  
coloured by regional idiosyncrasies and variations and that any  
reference to some sort of "standard English" is some sort of Platonic  
archetype which finds no actual manifestation in the real world (in  
this I think Gabe made a good point). All we have access to is the  
actual manifestations of the language. If uncancellable meaning only  
applies to "standard English" then it is a proposition which has very  
limited real-world relevance to understanding language.

And (in an attempt to give this at least some passing relevance to  
Hebrew), why do we suppose that BH should be any different. I think  
Karl's earlier comment:

> Now back to Biblical Hebrew: during the time it was written, from  
> about 1400–400 BC, it remained remarkably stable, with almost no  
> change in lexicography and grammar.

conceals all manner of difficulties which simply cannot allow such a  
claim to be readily made.

ISTM that there is an almost insurmountable difficulty faced by anyone  
proposing some form of uncancellable meaning, since only one exception  
would prove to be the downfall of the theory. OTOH, the identification  
of some terms which may appear to have uncancellable meaning cannot  
readily be extrapolated to substantiate the claim that the principle  
applies across the entire language.

In light of this, what is the uncancellable meaning of "wicked"?

--
Martin Shields,
Sydney, Australia.