Logomacy
Between logomachy and logomancy . . .

Language Log: Recursive titles:

Yesterday I posted something on Joshua Macy’s review of The Language Instinct. Since Macy called his piece “So what’s wrong with The Language Instinct?”, I considered titling mine “So what’s wrong with ‘So what’s wrong with The Language Instinct?’?”, so that he could respond “So what’s wrong with ‘So what’s wrong with “So what’s wrong with The Language Instinct?”?’?”, and so on.

Since I wrote a term paper in college titled “The Meaning of ‘The Meaning of Meaning’” ¹ I’m sure that I wouldn’t have been able to resist.

1. About Hilary Putnam’s famous paper “The Meaning of Meaning.” As best I recall, I thought the fact that people happily use jade to refer to two distinct substances, jadeite and nephrite, posed a problem for his theory that for us water means H2O even if we’re not aware of the chemical composition.