Language and Reality

Today I read a polemic in which the writer confused the verb "to entitle" with "to enable". My first impulse was to correct him, but I overcame the impulse because I have Wittgenstein to contend with. He made me feel stupid and inadequate. 

Yet, in spite of Wittgenstein's assertion, language is both universal and private because it is never precise unless one has to define and qualify key words in every sentence one uses, but doing so is so tiresome. That's why when we read others, we must have a modicum of sensitivity to the words they use, and not blindly projecting ourselves and our own meanings on to them like a moth to the flame. In other words, we must leave ego at the door and travel free of baggage into the interior world of the writer. To understand others is poetry; to misunderstand them is mere prose.

E.L. Doctorow said, "Reading a book is the essence of interactivity, bringing sentences to life in the mind.”

Here's what the self-regarded smart guy wrote. The polemic contains two short sentences but has three errors. One involves word usage. The other two are about grammar. That's just stylistics alone. Forget about his "thought" which is obviously crippled. 

"His money entitles him to do whatever he wants to with our government.

 God forbid anyone attempt to regulate that.

JP"