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Subject:
From:
David H Fears <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:31:17 EST
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Au contraire my friend Terrell, Lewis did  but purloin after perusing
Aristotle's "Interpretation," so that the term is  much, much older than you
surmise,
with or without your hallucinogenic  crutch:
As there are in the mind thoughts which  do not involve truth or falsity,
and
also those which must be either true or  false, so it is in speech. For
truth
and falsity imply combination and  separation. Nouns and verbs, provided
nothing is added, are like thoughts  without combination or separation;
'man' and
'white', as isolated terms, are not  yet either true or false. In proof of
this, consider the word 'goat-stag.' It  has significance, but there is no
truth
or falsity about it, unless 'is' or 'is  not' is added, either in the
present
or in some other tense. Likewise the word  'bitch-slap', often used by those
swarthy Estruscan sailors who claim to have  first discovered syphilis. It
is
simple combination and separation, this light  of truth and shade of
falsity.

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