keannu
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- Dec 27, 2010
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Doesn't 'executor' or 'executrix' mean a person who is in charge of a dying person's prorperty? It doesn't refer to actors or actresses, right?
st30)The use of heroine and executrix as referring to a hero or executor who is female illustrates what Douglas Hofstadter calls "the slippery slope" of meaning. In his book Metamagical Themas, Hofstadter shows diagrammatically how the slippery slope works. A triangle represents the idea of, let's say, a heroic person. At one base angle of this triangle is the word heroine, representing the female heroic person. At the other base angle is the word hero, representing the male heroic person. And at the apex is the generic word, again hero, encompassing both. But because the hero at the apex and the hero at one base are identical in name, their separate meanings slip back and forth along one side of the triangle, the slippery slope. The meanings blend and absorb each other. They bond together on the slope. And heroine, at the other base angle, remains outside that bond.
st30)The use of heroine and executrix as referring to a hero or executor who is female illustrates what Douglas Hofstadter calls "the slippery slope" of meaning. In his book Metamagical Themas, Hofstadter shows diagrammatically how the slippery slope works. A triangle represents the idea of, let's say, a heroic person. At one base angle of this triangle is the word heroine, representing the female heroic person. At the other base angle is the word hero, representing the male heroic person. And at the apex is the generic word, again hero, encompassing both. But because the hero at the apex and the hero at one base are identical in name, their separate meanings slip back and forth along one side of the triangle, the slippery slope. The meanings blend and absorb each other. They bond together on the slope. And heroine, at the other base angle, remains outside that bond.
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