While emptying my spam email box for the first of many times this morning (nothing usual for me these days), I saw one with the title containing the words, "Online dating veteran". I of course deleted it straight away - not least because I believed that it could have been the first step of a romance scam (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_scam), but that's another subject - but I remembered just how many emails just like this I receive these days; and I guess my mind drifted into the concept of the arena of the challenge of making yourself stand out amongst other people when you use online dating services.
When this one said, "Online dating veteran", I couldn't help but sense a level of ambiguity - does "veteran" here mean that he has spent more time than most doing online dating; or is he trying to really impress people from the start by implying that he is a former soldier? Or, curiously, was this an intentional ploy, specifically to create an aura of mystery, which always qualifies as attractive, doesn't it?
NB. Just because I claim that the person who sent me this email is a guy (not that I verified it) does not mean that I am gay; so don't claim that I am. Just thought I'd clear that one up.
Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Is there a linguistic term for this?
I'm speaking purely as a linguist / language enthusiast here - there are times when performative actions of certain verbs cannot exist without the performative actions of other (usually more commonly used) verbs.
For example, imagine you're just having a pint in your local pub and some guy approaches you and asks you if you know where the toilet is. So you indicate it to him. But I have not operationally defined what is meant by "indicate" in this context. I suppose the most conceivable approximation would be to POINT in the general direction of the toilets while STATING a rough description of where the entrance door is in relation to certain other objects which you know are there and which you know the guy will be quick to identify.
You know, in the English language, we have the term "eponomy". It is about words that are based on other words which are always proper nouns. Like certain terms of measurement: force in measured in Newtons (after Isaac Newton); Hz / MHz / GHz are derived from the name of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz etc. Romeo and Juliet are eponymous lead characters of the popular Shakespeare play with the same name. Well, is there a word situations such as the word "indicate" for its use in the preceding paragraph?
For example, imagine you're just having a pint in your local pub and some guy approaches you and asks you if you know where the toilet is. So you indicate it to him. But I have not operationally defined what is meant by "indicate" in this context. I suppose the most conceivable approximation would be to POINT in the general direction of the toilets while STATING a rough description of where the entrance door is in relation to certain other objects which you know are there and which you know the guy will be quick to identify.
You know, in the English language, we have the term "eponomy". It is about words that are based on other words which are always proper nouns. Like certain terms of measurement: force in measured in Newtons (after Isaac Newton); Hz / MHz / GHz are derived from the name of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz etc. Romeo and Juliet are eponymous lead characters of the popular Shakespeare play with the same name. Well, is there a word situations such as the word "indicate" for its use in the preceding paragraph?
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