New York

Im in New York right now, and Im composing this blog post from my
handheld/cellular phone. I feel so technologically advanced, like
Warren Ellis !

Last night my friend Frank and I walked up Park Avenue arguing about
the spelling of the word deixis. The way Ive spelled it here is the way
he proposed and I naively believed it not to be so. Here is what
dictionary.com had to say about it:

deix·is ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dkss)
n.

The function of a deictic word in specifying its referent in a given
context.



[Greek, display, demonstrative reference, from deiknunai, to show. See
deik- in Indo-European Roots.]

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Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


deixis


n : the function of pointing or specifying from the perspective of a
participant in an act of speech or writing; aspects of a communication
whose interpretation depends on knowledge of the context in which the
communication occurs


Deixis was one of the first linguistic terms Frank had taught me when
we first met several years ago. I was wondering if a piece of a label
Id found on the street the other day was an instance of deixis, and
after looking it up, I believe the answer is indubitably no. This may
be of especial interest to the folks over at wrybrarian or perhaps the
book kitten (links to follow later when I have a real internet
connection).

I would have posted dreams from the past two days right now, but I
neglected to set up email accounts for posting to the dream blog...how unfortunate.