Octaves

ChrisMusic · November 2013

frankus said: As adults we should know that words have domains and contexts.
Personally I think we need fewer words and more thoughts, ideas and actions being un-named - unshared except through experience.
The internet has fooled a lot of people into thinking that knowing a word is sufficient and enables that person as much as a person who's experienced a thing.

A very interesting perspective, and with merit.

Words are just a building block for communication, and need some solidity just like their baked clay counterparts.
The human need to analyse and compartmentalise is part of us. We seek clarification and certainty. Maybe religion is an expression of that.

But surely the ultimate outcomes of ambiguity and misunderstanding are the conflicts we see around us, whether that is misunderstood motivations within a family, or the larger conflicts which inundate the news. Yes, I know the majority have different motivators. Is that the responsibility of words, or the domains and contexts you referred to?

Some make their livings from that ambiguity, whether that's in the humour that often accompanies it, or the chasm of misinterpretation that casual use, or historical change, elicits.

Is the answer in tighter more defined words, better authorship, or looser more fluid use of language?

I really don't know, but language should never be 'pickled in aspic', it is a living, malleable and evolving entity, with all that brings.

frankus said: Ever known someone who's not got a grasp of phonetics and says stuff comically wrong with utmost conviction?

Oh, and yes that's me too, I get it wrong far too often, amusing and embarrassing, sometimes in equal measure.

frankus · November 2013

Not all ambiguity is equivocation: ambiguity can encapsulate actual duality.

timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes can mean:

I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.
I fear the Greeks especially when they bring gifts.
I fear the Greeks and the gifts they bring.

..and the author meant all of them!

Decimation:

Language is a tool so it has applications and limitations, the ability to identify those limitations is inexpressably valuable.

What I respect most is experience and the ability to extemporise - which (in this instance) makes me question the need for a neologism in a paradigm invented ancient Greece (excellent inventors, observers and wordsmiths).

Phil_aka_Pip · November 2013

Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!

ChrisMusic · November 2013

A little food for thought - Dozenalists of the world unite! Rise up against the tyranny of ten!

http://www.theguardian.com/science/alexs-adventures-in-numberland/2012/dec/12/dozenalists-world-unite-tyranny-ten

All will become clear (maybe) in my next post

ChrisMusic · November 2013

The mode is simply the number which appears most often: maths definition. (no not this post)

ChrisMusic · November 2013

Maybe we should consider re-adopting the "octave" as a dozenal system, there are twelve frets and twelve discrete steps or semitones in an octave after all.

Note that the twelfth fret is the "octave", or the "X" word we are looking for, but that is in effect the first note of the new octave (or 13th note), the 0th fret (nut) being the root or first note of that "octave", (we really do accept confusing systems far too easily, don't we?).

Maybe the "X" word for this could be Xii in deference to the Roman numeral system - pronounced something like "kzee" (think Chinese pronunciation).

No one can say we are not culturally inclusive here.

Ah, the Roman system of numerals, clever, but with which modern maths would be a complete shite, thank god for the Indian numerals and their very dodgy concept of zero, and the Arabs for bringing that enlightenment to us.

So maybe that elusive new word could be "xii", or even "zii" or "kzee", it has a fairly logical basis. (just a thought and a neologism)

(fair do's, neologism is a new word in my universe, so xii creates a balance for it, with thanks to @frankus for leaving me scrambling for the dictionary, again ! )

daveww · November 2013

How come all you guys have jobs where you can do this stuff at work? Some entertaining stuff here but I can't keep up

ChrisMusic · November 2013

Just an "additional" thought, (yes I know, pun intended)

If you use fingers and thumbs separately, then counting in base-8, or base-16, or base-24, or even base-32 becomes quite simplez too !

And base-8 or base-16 brings things more in line with computer binary so it may have some merit also.

If you really push the boat out then you can do base-16 on the fingers of one hand, and base-1024 is possible with two hands.

Add a bend of the fingers and base-256 comes up on the fingers of one hand.

Just imagine what we could achieve with the addition of toes to count on too ! (probably falling over, in addition to the brain in complete meltdown !!! ) Do not go there.

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