the ambiguity of language

one of the readings for my rhetoric course this week was a piece by john locke discussing the difficulties of communication. he rails against the arbitrary nature of words, the way we can use the same word to refer to different concepts etc etc. in short, he complains about the complexity of language.

what a stodgy, stale, old fart. my favourite thing about language is its ambiguities. the myriad of meanings for a single word are simply fun to play with. certainly, there is a need for plain speech and accurate terminology if you are trying to communicate a logical concept to someone; however, i've found that playing with words often communicates something in a different way. perhaps it's pleasure, or amusement, or fascination, but a phrase like "screaming trees" or "cascading cacophony" or "teeth ground to dust" or any other given example is simply more interesting to me.

friscolate. abrogate. circumnavigate. relegate. innervate. collate. dictate. sedate. ornate.