Kuhn 12: Scarves and hats

[koganbot]

Suppose that someone deliberately says "scarf" where we would say "hat" and says "hat" where we would say "scarf," out of whimsy or contrariness. We could say he's breaking the rules. Suppose someone else - not deliberately, but perhaps because he's a foreigner just learning the language, or a young child, or has some cognitive impairment - also

Comments

[koganbot]

*Kuhn defines a paradigm (in the sense of "exemplar") as a concrete puzzle solution, but as we'll see, he does extend his idea of "puzzle" to "when is a scarf a scarf?" type of questions. So a "paradigm" here could be an instance of someone correctly using the word "scarf," use of the word "scarf" in the future being modeled on this instance - or, in general, on previous instances.

[koganbot]

Definition of "scarf" from the first edition of the American Heritage Dictionary:

1. A rectangular or triangular piece of cloth, worn about the neck or head for protection, warmth, or adornment. 2. Any piece of neckwear, such as a cravat or muffler. 3. A runner, as for a bureau of table. 4. Military. A sash denoting rank.Def'ns 1 and 2 are the relevant ones for our purpose. Say that the definitions are "rules." Now, 1 seems complete for one kind of scarf, both describes it and gives all three of its functions. Question: if there were a light cloth that was oval rather than rectangular but was used as a scarf, wouldn't you call that a scarf? What about a pentagon? (Say you worked at the Pentagon and were given a pentagonal scarf as souvenir.) I think the answer is yes and that those situations aren't even marginal. But what about shawls? Can't there be some overlap here, between shawls and scarves? Also, I can imagine that if this bit of English usage had developed differently, scarves might not be called "scarves" when used to