Philosophy Now Forum

Synecdoche means " figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole or vice versa [⋮] from Greek synekdokhe "the putting of a whole for a part; an understanding one with another," literally "a receiving together or jointly," from synekdekhesthai "supply a though...

Without explanation, Lewis & Short jumps from 'to annex by writing, to add to a writing' to ' B. Trop. 1. To impute, ascribe, attribute to one the cause of something'. Etymonline fails at explanation also. How's 'write' semantically related to 'impute'? Latin ascribere "to write in, enter ...

Please, can more people answer this question , with just one answer? Gerald Elgar's answer is too snippy. Steven Schwartzman would answer yes. See The Words of Mathematics: An Etymological Dictionary of Mathematical Terms Used in English , page 1. I started asking my trivial and seemingly irrelevan...

No, it's not a "concern" in the sense of "worries". It's a concern in the sense of "commercial enterprise, entity". PS: From the sense of busyness came the business meaning of “concern” I suppose. 1. How are these 2 senses of concern related? What semantic notions unde...

I picked $9 million CAD, in view of Japan†. I picked Canada, as I want to retire there. LottoMax's jackpot is $80 million, 6/49's $68 million. Giant jackpots worsen wealth inequality, and are unjust. Better to LOWER lofty jackpots, but RAISE the probability of winning jackpot. LottoMax ought offer ...

My students still reckon Lande’s 2 motivations for ‘unless’ = ‘if not’ (below) too abstract, formalistic! Thus I need a 3rd simpler, motivation with merely etymology . But I never studied linguistics! How do I 1. use these etymology quotations, to motivate ‘unless’ = ‘if not’? 2. teach why “less th...

My students still reckon Lande’s 2 motivations for ‘unless’ = ‘if not’ (below) too abstract, formalistic! Thus I need a 3rd simpler, motivation with merely etymology . But I never studied linguistics! How do I 1. use these etymology quotations, to motivate ‘unless’ = ‘if not’? 2. teach why “less th...