Language & Meaning: Crash Course Philosophy #26

Today we start our unit on language with a discussion of meaning and how we assign and understand meaning. We’ll cover sense and reference, beetles in boxes, and language games.

We’re also getting into the meaning-making game ourselves: bananas are now chom-choms. Pass it on.

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Image Credits:
Wizard School © DFTBA Games

All other images and video via ThinkStock or VideoBlocks

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[lincolnpepper]

CALL BANANAS CHOM CHOMS???

im dedicated.

[damondominique]

*Noah Chom-Chomsky has entered the chat*

[kirbyfan]

There is a around fourth grade reading level book called "Frindle" in the book the main character asks his English teacher where the definitions of words come from. She explains fairly well and he decides to make a new word. He starts calling the writing instrument that uses ink a Frindle instead of a pen. He gets a classmate to do it, and then another. They start going to the convenient store after school and asking for Frindles and pointing to pens. By the end of the week when they asked for a Frindle the clerk would respond "Black or Blue?"

[cyraconforth]

It's like that book 'Frindle'! Where this kid starts calling pens 'frindles' and it catches on until it's in the dictionary.

[JTan-wuwg]

Trivia: Chom choms are rich in potassium.

[FreakyFeline]

I believe this is one of the difficulties of creative writing. You might describe certain things in a particular way, but there is no guarantee that the reader will get exactly what you meant, because they might have misunderstood it or interpreted it in a different way.

[MrKostas]

My name is Anna
I live in Louisiana
I listen to Nirvana
And I like chom choms

[DustinRodriguez_]

Finally! Someone who recognizes how crazy language is! The fact we can speak to one another is positively straight up insane. The more you look into it, the crazier it gets. Although I would dispute the idea that we can't know that our subjective experiences are the same, but I don't believe I could reach the level of proving it. Brains are not as different as most would suppose. And our senses directly imprint our experience of reality on our brains in ways which do not differ much. When you see an "A", there is a literal pattern of neurons exactly in the shape of an "A" which light up. That's just where the optic nerve connects, and it gets more complicated from there, but I think that suggests that the chances our subjective experiences differ significantly (at least for those of us raised in similar environments) are small.

Back to how crazy language is, though. I say "apple" to you, and you picture an apple. I am able to project a pattern of neural activity into your brain. By vibrating meat parts in my mouth and throat. And you understand what I mean. Because when you were 2, someone made those noises a bunch of times when apples were around. And more generally because the people around you before age 5 frequently made similar noises when similar things were around. (A similar is VAGUE... sometimes a splatter of color on a piece of paper or a screen that has shapes kind-of like the thing you actually see (except flat, and at the wrong scale, and supporting none of the same interactions, and maybe even the totally wrong colors...) If they hadn't done that, then no amount of training could ever get you to understand that when I say "apple" I'm talking about a brand of computers. Obviously.

[Verpal]

Ok, this is terrifying, I didn't notice the word ''Chom Chom'' until I saw it on reddit, and apprently, the reddit guy also got it from another reddit guy, so I trace the source, and here I am.

Great job, Crash course, I think your ''Chom Chom'' have setting in for 2nd generations or more, I think this word might be here to stay if ppl work hard enough. By the sense of six (Or, in my opinion, four)degree separation, the word ''Chom Chom'' might well come to your own house without you knowing it.

[charlotteKILLS]

I had a friend in high school who had developed an entire language for him and his older sister to use called, "Loppy Doppy."
And it wasn't just some Pig Latin easily-translated nonsense either, it took YEARS of listening to them talk to each other to even slightly catch on to what they were discussing and I never could figure out how to answer them properly in Loppy Doppy.

They'd be going on like, "Loppuh showpa nippa jaru dopple kan?"
And you'd just have to sit there, nodding along like, "Okay you could be speaking Sanskrit right now and I'd never know..."

[simonsofowora]

Chom chom is so ridiculously fun to say. I really hope it cathces on.

[Yamikaiba]

This playlist has the most interesting comments section; no one's spamming "Oh, who else is here studying for their AP test?"

[chaseisbadmonkey]

Someone needs to make a new Wikipedia page for Chom Choms. Essentially a copy of the old "banana" page but correctly named. They need to be linked together.

[sarukun]

I would love to call bananas chom choms, cause that's adorable... but I rarely talk about bananas

[brodman]

Beetles in the box is why I find relationships and emotions so hard. I feel SOMETHING for the other person but I'm worried that if my beetle has lesser meaning than their beetle, then I feel like I'm leading the other person on.

Or another scary thing is maybe when I tell a girl that I 'like' her it's equivalent to her telling me she 'loves' me. So that after I've told her I 'like' her, I keep wondering why I can't say I 'love' her. My feeling may already be good enough for her to feel loved, but since I can't be sure which word to use and I end up making her feel undervalued. What would potentially be a perfect (no such thing as perfect) relationship, ends up in TEARS because of a damn beetle

[QuantumSeanyGlass]

It would be kinda ironic if chom chom caught on but the term "Banana Republic" stayed around, causing history teachers to have to explain that banana is actually an archaic form of the word chom chom.

[lenny]

7:44 I actually did this once for fun with my family, I started using the word "crab" as a kind of insult or to constitute someone's incompetence... I still can't get rid of it xD to some degree it is funny to catch the reactions you get after calling someone a "crab" in public

[oxymorono]

Definitely my favorite episode so far. I love thinking about this stuff.

[WillaDaKilla]

If Bananas are now Chom Choms can Pajamas be Pajom Joms?

[CrunchyCrowe]

casually adds chom choms to urban dictionary.