Words and Propositions - Random Thoughts after reading a little segment of Bible

-Original text

"Now then, these are all one people and they speak one language; this is just the beginning of what they are going to do. Soon they will be able to do anything they want! Let us go down and mix up their language so that they will not understand on another." So the LORD scattered them all over the earth, and they stopped building the city. The city was called *Babylon, because there the LORD mixed up the language of all the people, and from there he scattered them all over the earth.

*Babylon: This name sounds like the Hebrew for mixed up.

From: Genesis 10-12-11

-Random thoughts about language

If one can truly master a language, one would border on being omnipotent. Here, by language, I mean neither miscellaneous usages nor colossal strict grammars, but the essential nature of it - the prowess of it to bridge effective communication. Sometimes, some people may leave others the impression of being adept at manipulating. On other occasions, some may feel someone very slow with words and reticent. All of those show the capability of language, or put it in a more precise way - proposition.

Some people may have a tad difficulties here to feel the fine indication between those terms - words and proposition. Because most people think that words are the relatively (phonemes and morphemes are saying hi...) the smallest unit in a sentence. There’s nothing wrong about that. Everybody has his or her own perspective and need to agree to disagree. However, the most decent, qualified and legitimate role in a sentence should be its proposition.

Reasons are quite simple. Word alone doesn’t carry meaning. Even when we step back and take a look at a sentence that is made up of simply-in-sequence words, those words in it don’t carry meaning, either. For example, “You rat four is us baby new right.” We got host, guest, audience and band here - the subject, object, predicate, some other necessary stuff to express thoughts - but no party is in order. They are just a bunch of ‘people’ who are lost and don’t know where they are and what they are going to do.

Proposition is distinctive. Just as there are a lot of words in a sentence, there could be more than one proposition in it as well. We put our words in the right spot to convey our proposition or propositions. Only by containing at least one proposition, a sentence could be sentenced as a sentence even if there’s only one word in it. Example number one, image you just pissed off your best friend and she or he called you “nuts!”. Your dear friend made a valid proposition and point here - Y’all crazy! Example number two, take a look at this sentence, “I’m a very open-minded person, so I may not agree with you on this in the end, but I am willing to give you my all ears.” There’r more than one proposition in this one. First, I am not a dogmatic person. Second, you can tell me whatever you want to say. Third, there is a fat chance that I would still hold on to my own opinions at last. Proposition is the gargantuan and charming power composed and wielded by words that are in the right sequence. That’s what we live by when we converse and express. That’s the charisma we feel. Words are changeable and ephemeral, however propositions remain perpetual.

Booze up!

To the language we live by.