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lofk

9 karma · joined March 8, 2019

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lofk··on What's the minimum number of words you'd need to define all other words? (2012)
I have been reading the comments and I think it needs to be stated the problem itself is misguided. This quote sums up the main issue quite well -

“Our language is an imperfect instrument created by ancient and ignorant men. It is an animistic language that invites us to talk about stability and constants, about similarities and normal and kinds, about magical transformations, quick cures, simple problems, and final solutions. Yet the world we try to symbolize with this language is a world of process, change, differences, dimensions, functions, relationships, growths, interactions, developing, learning, coping, complexity. And the mismatch of our ever-changing world and our relatively static language forms is a problem.” - Wendell Johnson