Hey man, not for nothing but, let's let the hotforwords Ruskie work on the etymology for us....(got an in with her as of now), since all the pole-polishers and nub-punchers on this site seem to want to spread their own personal form of cheer on the subject, not to mention the public masturbation sans therapy.....Dagmarrrr, don't let the site's users tell you what you already know, drop a nut and define the rules yerselfish......

Ohhh and by the by, to whomever it may be that has one opinion or the other as to whether some breasts or some penis' have any allure for one monkey or the other and wish to offer THEIR definition of what porn is or is not...again, go fuck yourselves, make a viddy, and push that shit on your own street corner..

and stop all the cursin' while yer at it...Why not let Jesus give you some pointers regarding your potty mouths, eh?

Matthew 15:11: "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man."

^ To be honest, I'm going off of what I saw on hotforwords for the cop thing. I don't know if she's authoritative, but she did address the notion that cop was short for copper badges, but said that's not really the origin.

If you want a semantic battle, I'll waste a few brain cells on it. Let's start with the etymology of the word semantic itself:

1894, from Fr. sémantique, applied by Michel Bréal (1883) to the psychology of language, from Gk. semantikos "significant," from semainein "to show, signify, indicate by a sign," from sema "sign" (Doric sama).

In short, semantics refer to the method or process of how people communicate ideas. Normally discussions of semantics are about accurately conveying an idea or concept with words. For example, how do people know the difference between their, they're and there in spoken language? Why doesn't that kind of overloading create a lot communication issues?

A big part of the answer is context. With they're, their, and there, all you need to really know is the grammatical part of speech. Other concepts need a semantic context.

For example, let's talk about a red light. A red traffic light means stop, but a red light in other context might mean that your stereo is in standby mode, your phone is charging, or you're getting close to the whorehouse.

It can also be used metaphorically, as in "She told him she didn't want to see him anymore, but he just loves to run red lights."

I find that you can be selectively obtuse about these different ways of discerning meaning from words.

When I say "I am a liberal", I usually mean this, and not necessarily this.

However, I don't really think being a liberal necessarily is in conflict with being a liberal. I too have a strong devotion to individual liberty, I just think there are more fundamental human rights than you do. But I also think there are limits to rights, and that there's no root violation of "individual liberty" if you have taxpayer subsidized, compulsory social insurance, any more than if you have a taxpayer subsizied, compulsory fire department.

But I don't need to express all of that if what I'm really saying is "I don't think liberals like to be told to think." There's no real doubt about who I'm talking about when I say "liberals". My semantics are clear.

If one wanted to respond to such an assertion, they would take on its semantic content. In other words, they'd say "broad generalizations like that are bad", or "bullshit, liberals are all zombies that do what George Soros tells them to", or even address the implication, such as "conservatives don't like to be told what to think, either!", or "I believe what I believe, and if Rush Limbaugh agrees with me, then I suppose he's on my side."

Incidentally, here's a good etymology of the word liberal. Personally, I'm using the original root definition, "befitting free men, noble, generous," when I describe the people who believe in this. When I'm referring to anti-tax zealots, I'm usually dancing around this, but I can also come up with more scathing barbs as the situation merits.

hardly swedish, her name is marina orlova and comes from moscow

>> ^xxovercastxx:
spelled intelligence wrong in the tags


Oops, thats embarrassing. Thanks

Oh, sorry. I was talking about the root Greek word barbaros "foreign, strange, ignorant". I guess if I was being little more reductionist I would have said proto-indo-european for barbar, but I figured that was more of a mocking imitation sound rather than a word.

>> ^randomize:
rofl, "not greek"