Semantics of archetypes

[Ares Land]

No, windows don't necessarily open. There are lots that don't. How about train windows ? Or church windows? Or skyscraper windows?

The key feature of a window is that it's designed to let outside light in.

[bradrn]

No, windows don't necessarily open. There are lots that don't. How about train windows ? Or church windows? Or skyscraper windows?

The key feature of a window is that it's designed to let outside light in.

Oh! For some reason I thought we were talking about ‘open’, not ‘window’.

[Ares Land]

Open is difficult too. I think it's defined best in opposition with closed: when you open a window, the expectation is that the operation is reversible; an open cluster implies the existence of closed clusters (well, except that they're called globular clusters...); if you can somebody's belly open, 'open' is in opposition to the normal state of the abdomen.

[Linguoboy]

I don't normally "drink" soup unless it's miso soup. I do sometimes drink down the remaining broth in the bowel after finishing all the solid parts, but I do that with cold cereal, too.

Interesting! Next question: do you eat or drink soup? (I’m not actually sure how I would answer this.)

Didn't I literally just answer that? Ladling something from a bowl to my mouth with a spoon is "eating", not "drinking". "Drinking" involves just my mouth and the vessel or--at most--a straw.

My father (and sometimes mother) often have oatmeal porridge for breakfast, so I always just assumed that porridge was a synonym for oatmeal. I had no idea that porridge was a category rather than just one specific type of breakfast!

I think that's typical of UK usage (so probably widespread in the Commonwealth as well).

Moose-tache just gave everyone a decent two-bit summary, but I highly recommend everyone read Lakoff's Women, fire, and dangerous things if they haven't already to get a better idea of how our brains construct categories.

The way I usually approach these discussions is I imagine someone saying to me, "I had X for dinner" or "I brought you X" or "I bought an X". Then I imagine them specifying, "It was Y". What's my gut reaction? If it's, "But you said it X!", then that's a good indication that I don't consider Y a member of category X. It's more-or-less like a syntactical well-formedness test only for semantics.

The key feature of a window is that it's designed to let outside light in.

The only feature of a skylight is to let light in. Yet I don't consider that a "window".

[KathTheDragon]

The main difference between a window and a skylight is that skylights are on the roof, and windows are in the walls.

[Linguoboy]

The main difference between a window and a skylight is that skylights are on the roof, and windows are in the walls.

And yet something that looked and operated exactly like a traditional sash window but was installed in the roof instead of a wall I would still call a "window" and not a "skylight". (The reverse, of course, is not true.)

[Raphael]

For speakers of different languages, it is also important not to forget that even if a dictionary translates one word in one language as a specific word in another language, there might still be subtle differences between the meanings of the two words that the dictionary didn't catch.

[Linguoboy]

For speakers of different languages, it is also important not to forget that even if a dictionary translates one word in one language as a specific word in another language, there might still be subtle differences between the meanings of the two words that the dictionary didn't catch.

I have a terrific book called Dictionary of German synonyms which explains the contrasts between different German words which can be used to translate the same English word. It's so useful, my only quibble with it is that it doesn't cover more words. I wish I had one for every language I use actively.

That's one thing I appreciate about Wiktionary: it often includes usage notes for these types of cases. (See, for instance, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nacht#Usage_notes.)

[Zju]

Is fire extinguisher a metal bottle? Would restrictions to metal bottles [sic] apply to fire extinguishers?

[Pabappa]

My breakfast today is GrapeNuts with yogurt. Is that a cereal, a yogurt, or both? I use enough GrapeNuts that I have to eat it from a bowl rather than just pouring them into the yogurt containers, and by weight I think theyre about equal.

Is fire extinguisher a metal bottle? Would restrictions to metal bottles [sic] apply to fire extinguishers?

Yes, ... not that I would ever call it that, since "fire extinguisher" is much more clear, but a container that sprays liquid is usually if not always a bottle. Maybe "canister" or some weird word like that would be better.

Restrictions? I dont know what you mean. Like airplanes? I dont think anyone would carry a fire extinguisher on a plane because they're heavy and thus expensive to transport.

[Zju]

My breakfast today is GrapeNuts with yogurt. Is that a cereal, a yogurt, or both? I use enough GrapeNuts that I have to eat it from a bowl rather than just pouring them into the yogurt containers, and by weight I think theyre about equal.

Is fire extinguisher a metal bottle? Would restrictions to metal bottles [sic] apply to fire extinguishers?

Yes, ... not that I would ever call it that, since "fire extinguisher" is much more clear, but a container that sprays liquid is usually if not always a bottle. Maybe "canister" or some weird word like that would be better.

Restrictions? I dont know what you mean. Like airplanes? I dont think anyone would carry a fire extinguisher on a plane because they're heavy and thus expensive to transport.

1. That's just an ordinary cereal in my book.

2. The prompt to ask this was me seeing an image of an order "No metal bottles allowed" with an fire extinguisher stricken through diagonally next to it.