---- By J. L. S.
Geary brought 'kankedort' -- the ἅπαξ λεγόμενον in Chaucer.
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The Gricean Question.
1. Word meaning reduces to Utterer's meaning.
2. "Kankedort" is used once.
3. What the h-ll does the utterer mean?
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More in the comment: Recall, as you think these things: it's the intention on the part of the utterer to instill in the addressee the belief that the utterer holds the _content_ of a concept as relevantly associated with the belief he is expressing. In the context of the first use of the word:
From Troilus and Criseyde, II.
1751 But now to yow, ye loveres that ben here,
1752 Was Troilus nought in a kankedort,
1753 That lay, and myghte whisprynge of hem here
1754 And thoughte, "O Lord, right now renneth my sort
1755 Fully to deye, or han anon comfort!"
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ReplyDeletewww.jstor.org/stable/409734
erroneous form of "conundrum" -->
*kanemdord" (with b-d --> d-d) -->
"kankedort".
Vide: MLN 64.503 (1949).
http://www.futilitycloset.com/category/religion/
ReplyDelete"What is gopher wood? Noah used it to build his ark, but there’s no other reference to it in the Bible.Similarly, no one’s quite sure what a kankedortis. It appears in Troilus & Criseyde. The OED defines it helplessly as "an awkward situation or affair" and says it’s “of unascertained etymology.”
For our Griceian blogos, a particular
ReplyDeletegooglewhack, n. a Google™ search result consisting of a single hit, in response to a search on two words which were not enclosed in quotation marks. [Etym.: from Google and whack, cointed by Gary Storm on 8 January 2002].
Refs.:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/who-can-whack-a-google-on-the-web-659312.html
googlewhack.com
no seeums. bedbugs..night tremors...lots of hapaxes here
ReplyDelete.5212941
21.801
A New Breed of Guard Dog Attacks Bedbugs
Published: March 10, 2010
Mr. Rincon added: “We see people who literally haven’t slept for weeks. They think everything is a bedbug. At a place in Jersey, the wife was a total wreck. She’d saved 15 samples of stuff, thinking it was bedbugs.”It was mostly lint, as it turned out
Well, a hapax is (hapax legomenon, rather -- since this is neuter passive singular "what-is-said once") should perhaps be restricted to the Greek language -- high classy period, Perikles age, of sorts --. Don't you sort of hate it when they say, "Ah, non-classical Greek!". They take such a narrow, but justified, as to what counts as "Classical Greek" that no one should wonder that some lexemes were never used but One. The Gricean problem boils down, not a problem really, that no 'history' of the word will guide its understanding so it's Gricean utterer's intention in one-off scenarios -- _the_ Gricean account.
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