The so-called "Bible Code" is an example of apophenia. Using equidistant letter sequences in Genesis some claim to have found predictions of modern day events such as political assassinations, catastrophes, epidemics, etc.
It's odd that the word was lost to you even for a second, Wandeljw. The word for this is bullshit.
0 Replies
Merry Andrew
1
Reply
Thu 11 Feb, 2010 04:37 pm
@JTT,
JTT wrote:
Quote:
I'm still trying to figure out why there is no word for the 2nd person singular pronoun in English.
you
That's 2nd person plural, JTT. Even you should know that.
When I first came to work here at the Widget Factory, I could not understand
their use of the word "nominal". I'd only ever heard it used to mean "in name
only". But here we say a test's results were nominal, or a mission flew
nominally when everything went as expected. One doesn't say OK because
that implies there were no errors. Nominal means there may have been errors,
but none that were unexpected.
Is this a new form of English, where you can assign random meanings?
You, Merry Andrew, are mistaken. And so often, even you don't know that.
0 Replies
JTT
1
Reply
Thu 11 Feb, 2010 05:43 pm
@McTag,
Quote:
George: But here we say a test's results were nominal, or a mission flew
nominally when everything went as expected. One doesn't say OK because
that implies there were no errors. Nominal means there may have been errors,
but none that were unexpected.
Quote:
McTag: Is this a new form of English, where you can assign random meanings?
Quote:
M-W
Function: adjective
nominal
5 : being according to plan : satisfactory <everything was nominal during the launch>
Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun enters Capricorn by definition at the moment of winter solstice, or roughly at December 22, and leaves it around January 19.
Here is another example. A psychology instructor gave out pencils to students for an exam. He noticed that many female students failed to return the pencils when class was over. He claimed that he now had support of Freud's theory of penis envy.
Apophenia has been mentioned as a factor in John Nash's illness. Mathematicians see patterns and connections (real or not real) that most people do not see. Apophenia is not always delusional, sometimes the connections or patterns are legitimate.
How could "nominal" be assigned a meaning (even at #5) of "satisfactory; according to plan".
It doesn't mean that at all.
It's not a theoretical issue, McTag. It's a done deal. It means precisely that when, and these are the operative words, the context matches that meaning for certain dialects of English.
You shouldn't expect that you can climb up an apple tree and find peaches.
