We know language has to be made up for new stuff. That is when the common mother tongue won't do. We want to avoid the practice of making up a lot of new language without any underlying necessity
> (I'm leaving aside the weirdness of the concept of the "common mother
> tongue," which of course has no empirical existence.)
"No empirical existence" - hmm. Well, we still use a lot of Latin and the world uses a HELL of a lot of English. Seems like empirical existence to me.
> ALSO: Who in the hell ever said anything about "private language." I
> don't have the slightest idea what that means. No one uses a private
> language (except some kids who invent such by themselves).
"Fractal" did not exist and then it did. One guy coined it. That's pretty private. People make up private language constantly. Private language in da hizzy!
> The claim is that there are subjects out there in the world that really
> need to be discussed. That at least to begin with (and probably for
> quite an extensive discussion) can only be expressed in specialized
> and/or complex arguments (and specialized language is NOT a private
> language). Denying the legitimacy of specialized language is, of course,
> a STALINIST trick. It leads to sending to the real or virtual gulag
> anyone whose views differ from the given and therefore cannot be
> discussed in the langauge of the given.
There's a difference between satisfying the needs of innovation and obscuring an argument. The Stalinists were great creators of language. In fact, Stalinists formalized the Marx-Speak we all use (or are required to recognize) on this list. English is especially full of new words and antique, useless words. So some maiven tells you a new grammar, a new word, gives you a new pair of matzkes - so kvell. I should care? To me, he's a mamzer. If a word macht nicht to me, have I not the right to call it dreck? Somebody's a Stalinist now? So who?
boddi