ClumsyMonkey.net

Grelling's Paradox:

Consider the relation of describing between adjectives and objects. Red describes an object x if and only if x is red, Tall describes an object if and only if X is tall, and so forth.
Among adjectives are those that describe words. For example, 7-lettered describes the word example. This raises the possibility of adjectives that describe themselves, and there are meny of them. For example, 14-charactered describes itself, and so Enlgish, short, ambiguous, and polysyllabic. Let us call these words "autological".
There are also lots of adjectives that do not apply to themselves. Among these are long, German. monosyllabic and 50-lettered. Let us call such adjectives "heterological". That is, an adjective A is heterological if and only if A does not describe A.
Is heterological heterological?

ummm... yes? *thinks for a long long time*


my brain is turning into mush, i think.

I wish i'd get paid for making up words

But if the word is heterological, it can't describe itself. Therefore, if the word "heterological" was heterological, it could not be heterological (because that's what it describes).

But, you can't say that the word isn't heterological. Because then it actually wouldn't be describing itself, thereby falling under the definition of a heterological word.

starseed_10 wrote:I wish i'd get paid for making up words

Doesn't matter that the word is made up for the problem. It's just a shortcut for "a word that does not describe itself".

wait, i thought you said "heterological" means that the word DOESNT desrcibe itself

Brain imploding.

Axtech wrote:But if the word is heterological, it can't describe itself. Therefore, if the word "heterological" was heterological, it could not be heterological (because that's what it describes)..

why cant it be heterological?

fair enough.

Because if it's heterological, it can not describe itself. But that alone makes it heterological (which would mean that it does describe itself).

Hope wrote:wait, i thought you said "heterological" means that the word DOESNT desrcibe itself

That's correct.

i get it.. sort of.

phew.

hehe

rob, i'm guessing you've heard the one question/two guards riddle?

hehe, yeah

(assuming it's the one where one guard always lies, the other always tells the truth, and you have to figure out which door to go through (one has treasure, the other has a man-eating beast of some sort), but you only get one question)

Here's my riddle:

It was here before God,
It is more evil than the Devil,
Rich people cannot buy it,
Poor people have it.

What is it?

yeah. that's it

NOTHING

YOU'RE heterological.