Board Thread:Skyrim/@comment-12599067-20130928060857/@comment-24589685-20140226180707

I don't know... I don't really agree that language breaks down or stops being useful, nor demands strict definitions, simply because a given word carries mulitple, ambiguous, fuzzy or contradictory definitions. Truth be told, contrary to how most people learn to think of language ("words for things") only a TINY portion of language actually is directly nomenclature. Furthermore, the more precise and strict a linguistic, semiotic or categorical system becomes, the narrower, less descriptive, or less predictive it becomes in use. "Thingy" is a VASTLY more useful word, and much more often used, than, say "metasyntactic variable", which means something very very precise and specific, with a strict definition, but would never be employed outside of linguistics or programming.

The beauty is how 9 times out of 10, we understand EXACTLY what someone means when they say "thingy". Far more of how we draw and interpret meaning comes from context, syntax and inferences from tone, body language, paralanguage, etc. than we usually give credit for... the actual paradigmatic selection of a given word is actually often secondary to all that.

It's pretty reasonable to understand what "indigenous" means in a given context. In a sociological, historical or social justice context, there are definitely indigenous Australians (black) and non-indigenous Australians (white, asian, etc), even though in a biological context there's no such thing as indigenous placental mammals in Australia. The fact that the same word has contradictory meanings in two different contexts doesn't "harm" the word's ability to precisely signifiy something meaningful, because it's very easy for people to understand which context you're speaking from, and thus which meaning you're using.