Hunglish.orgWhy do people argue seemingly ceaselessly and seemingly pointlessly about obscure points? Perhaps it's as simple as the reality that no word means the same thing to any two people.
Written by Scott Savoie
I've noticed recently that misunderstandings often times develop even between native speakers of a given language. This, I think, is due to the fact that the words we use don't always have a common meaning.
For example, take the word “fish” (in Hungarian, “hal”). Everyone knows what *a* fish is, but imagine that someone’s only experience with seafood was a nasty, rotting piece of bait that had been left in the sun for a few days and was then was half-cooked in dirty grease. The guy eats it and forms the opinion “I don't like fish” because he gets the trots for several days.
Then he meets another guy, whose experience with seafood is with fresh swordfish or grilled Mahi mahi in lemon butter, with maybe just a hint of rosemary. In short, good stuff.
If these two guys meet, they could have a rather spirited discussion about the relative merits of eating waterborne creatures. Neither would be able to comprehend the other’s position, even though they would understand all of the words.
This is important fact to remember the next time an argument extends past 3-1/2 to four minutes: Everyone is right, and everyone is wrong.