Joanna Sheldon wrote:
>
> > > You're implying that all values are distorted, are you? Never mind. Take
> > [clip]
> The "your terms are meaningless" hobbyhorse is looking a little lame,
> Carrol, perhaps you should give it a rest.
>
> Note, too, that "distorted values" didn't originally trouble you:
> [CLIP]
Joanna's reply from this point on is fairly persuasive. But not this sentence. If X can be distorted, then X is a constant of some kind: there is some constant (which I call a Platonic Form) which is twisted from its proper shape. Unless you have that proper shape in mind there is no way to tell whether the instance at hand is "distorted." My wrist after I slipped ont he ice was distorted; that distortion could be judged by the form abstracted (Aristotelian abstraction) from our knowledge of wrists. That particular distortion still turns my stomach when I recall it too vividly. But what is this constant "loyalty" that "brand loyalty" distorts? This is tentative, but I think if you were to check your memory you would find that rather often loyalty is a relationship that goes upward to some sort of hierarchical superior. Loyalty to king, to country, to husband (rather more often than to wife), to one's employer. Don't some of the following expressions strike you as more common, while others give a slight start of surprise:
Loyal subject. Loyal customer. Loyal wife. Loyal child. Loyal parent. Loyal employer. Loyal King. Loyal deity. Loyal son. Loyal General. Loyal troopers. Loyal president. Loyal keeper. Loyal dog. Loyal flunkey. Loyal master.
Three hundred years ago the name "Betty" almost always (in fiction,verse, etc.) referred to a servant. Which of the following seems most "natural":
Massa's in the cold cold ground. Betty's in the cold cold ground.
Carrol