[FRIAM] the role of metaphor in scientific thought

[Steven A Smith]

Nick sez:

> We have a word for tingo, don’t we?  Its “to ”borrow””.
>
In my experience 'to "borrow" ', in our culture usually means to "take 
without permission" or more bluntly "to steal".   That extends to 
"borrowing without returning" and anecdotally we are familiar with those 
who seem to do this chronically, though I don't know of it ever driving 
anyone to pauperhood.   I suppose, in the right extended context, one 
could claim that "tingo" and " 'borrow' " (with quotes) are roughly 
sememes...  but that is a LOT of context!

  There are other words in Rapanui for "to steal" which seem to all have 
an implication of "stealing things of little value", "to pilfer".   I'm 
not sure that "tingo" is a euphamism for simply borrowing without 
returning, it might very well be a real cultural experience that doesn't 
occur (often?) in our culture?

I wonder if there is an analog in "borrow words" between languages... 
can one language "borrow" so many word from another that the target of 
the borrowing becomes impoverished?   Within small circles I suppose 
that one could make that claim for Pidgens/Creoles where the resulting 
language is so much richer than the word-donor language that it might be 
true in some figurative sense...  or where the borrow words' meaning 
becomes more closely associated with the borrowing language than the 
mother tongue?

Curiouser and curiouser,
  - Steve





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20170623/9717f6ab/attachment.html>