Oh christ on a cracker *rolls eyes* you don't need to map from one language to another very specific words for the concept to be present in that culture. I don't think anybody [here] is suggesting that. But it's still an interesting -- though not necessarily anthropologically significant -- question of whether there's a monomorphemic sign that reflects the thought "carefully skirting a social difficulty while still communicating well".
And your point about there being a way of communicating this without difficulty ("be nice" being one of those) is what I meant by reflecting my own skepticism of the implied strong form of the S-W hypothesis.
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Date: 2006-01-16 08:56 pm (UTC)I don't think anybody [here] is suggesting that. But it's still an interesting -- though not necessarily anthropologically significant -- question of whether there's a monomorphemic sign that reflects the thought "carefully skirting a social difficulty while still communicating well".
And your point about there being a way of communicating this without difficulty ("be nice" being one of those) is what I meant by reflecting my own skepticism of the implied strong form of the S-W hypothesis.