Language and Meaning

[Janet Asiain]

Diehards,

I just came across this sentence in one of Robert Salzman's substack. It's a paraphrase of a  conclusion drawn by another writer/researcher:

" language, left unchecked, invents entities and tasks that feel real simply because grammar allows them"

I wonder if this might shed some light on the perennial observation that language isn't adequate to express certain experiences of states of being.

Here's a link to the entire message (quite short, the message I mean, not the link):  https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzQfBGbSBvGpKJjtwMQFnfFZDfdC?compose=CllgCJqVNzxqjxTFBZNbQhlXmRWsMmsSbvpXRvLkJlkqPbPDFlnpRhWKmBPSmQXVPVQlCJJdVdB

Happy New Year, for the last time!

Janet

[Rob MacDonald]

Thanks Janet.

Read it, and my initial thought is that Saltzman must really despise free verse poetry or experimental jazz. 😂

To your question, I think "category mistakes" and policing language to root out nonsense are on brand for Saltzman's particular way of seeing the world.  I am not sure it applies, though.   The examples of calling out 'trouble' when someone asks where Oxford is, even after being shown the dorms, administration buildings, and lecture halls, or taking issue with the statement that it must have been hard to be 'on time' before there were clocks, seems rather academic and elitist.  Zen koans must also be worthless to Saltzman?

The Oxford example, to me, points out the flimsiness of language and the arbitrary existence of beliefs and ideas.  "This is Oxford" is a reflection of a shared reality, but one could say the idea of Oxford lives in the heads of the people who believe it.  Isn't it just like the sense of self?  A belief in ownership? 

Or being on time before clocks... it pre-supposes that clocks are necessary to tell time.  How many times has the phrase been uttered: "We leave at dawn" - that infers a sense of time without clocks, so I am not sure how nonsensical any of what he or Ryle are citing as errors really is. 

I suppose if you are touring Oxford and one asks this question, it is nonsense.  But what if you are in a philosophy lecture, is it still nonsense? 

Doesn't it all come back to perspective? 

If we are neck deep in a lake or the ocean or a river, and we get out of the water and there is a cold breeze, we might say that we are wet and cold.  But unless one has had the experience of being wet or cold, hearing the statement, "I am cold and wet" is nonsense to the inexperienced listener or reader.  Perhaps the inexperienced listener or reader asks, "I have never been wet or could, can you describe it to me?"  To me, that gets at the heart of the inadequacies of language. 

Anyway, my two cents here, humbly submitted. 

In good humor, when I read Saltzman, I always am left feeling like maybe he needs a hug or a shot of tequila.  😂      

Peace,
Rob M.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Diehard Group" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to diehard-grou...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAGdKTP4fA%2Bh%2B5antQxEmHqUqzufUhE5VgWhmH4ObPzssrrMoFg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Paul Rezendes]

Everyone,

Janet and Rob M., to assess what Saltzman is saying is too intellectual for me. I'm not going there. But Rob, you caught my attention when you talked about telling time without a clock. Native Americans did it all the time, “Meet me at the big bend in the Contoocook River when the beaked hazelnut blooms."

Paul

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAN6ZE8KxSHXUJv3sNbXP172cvUQjEM_V2d--HHkyENpRtsAXrQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Janet Asiain]

Haha, Rob and Paul, I forgot that Salzman is not in the list of Diehard approved thinkers! You in particular are way ahead of me, Rob. Actually this particular Substack article didn’t seem characteristic of RS to me and I think its whole point is to warn us about AI. 

Just a with rookie question, though: I don’t see why it would follow that he wouldn’t like free verse. And can’t make the connection between language and experimental jazz.

I get what you mean about the hug, with or without a shot of tequila. His dourness appeals to me for some reason I can’t put my finger on but maybe you can!

Janet A

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CE3C6392-D9D6-4E19-A630-BEB9B69B3B38%40paulrezendes.com.

[Dan Kilpatrick]

Janet, Rob, Pal and All,

First, I'm sure I've seen Saltzman quoted or his videos shown here, so not sure he is somehow disallowed. Second, for some reason Google won't open the link for me, even though I have gmail. In spite of this, and going with the quote that Janet shared, it brings up something for me.

The "realness" of things, when we use nouns, seems implicit in our languaging. To such an extent that we rarely stop to question the whole thing. And what is particularly interesting is that this realness is being experienced non-verbally, not as words. There is a nonverbal sense of continuity, solidity, concreteness, fixedness in their use, especially in reference to ourselves. And all of it implies separate things.

It seems to me these words are approximations or constructs that are convenient in communicating, thinking etc. But they evoke a sense of something permanent, that continues and is or has an identity, nonverbally, as an experience, and is separate. They evoke identifying as me, a me that can take so many forms during the day (as this or that) that it actually loses its whole meaning. It is never the same, and yet the identity/identifying simply continues on regardless. So what seems particularly interesting is noticing this experiencing happening, nonverbally. It would seem that we are actually this experiencing. What a wonder to behold..... Is this experiencing actually separate from anything???

As seen from here in this moment, -Dan

On Sun, Jan 4, 2026 at 1:48 PM Janet Asiain <janet...@gmail.com> wrote:

--

[Dan Kilpatrick]

Sorry Paul for the mispelling! -d.

[Rob MacDonald]

Janet,

Hahaha... if there's an approved list of sources / teachers, I didn't receive that paperwork upon being added to the group.  I mostly poke at Saltzman because of how matter of fact he can be about things.  I have found value in his perspective from time to time, and it's always a good gut check, no matter where it comes from, to go and look and see and be curious about held beliefs.

The free verse and experimental jazz jab was echoing kind of what Paul mentioned in his reply.  I did a couple years of graduate school work in English Language and Literature, and excerpts like this:
" This example shows exactly what is at stake. Category errors can be detected purely by structural awareness. The correction comes from sensitivity to conditions of intelligibility, not external pressures or repercussions."   just reminds me of how rigid perspective can, in fact, "invent entities and tasks that feel real".

We encounter this all the time in the art world.  Look at Maurizio Cattelan's work of art "Comedian".  Nonsense, right?  It's a banana duct taped to a wall.  Yet someone bought a version of it for six million bucks not too long ago!  That's expensive nonsense! 

This concept of "category mistake" just smacks of evaluations of poets according to rhyme and meter.

But what do I know?  I could just be one of the dullards completely missing the overall point.  Hahaha.  

All I can say is that I have had the experience of language failing me multiple times when trying to express the thisness that is always here.  The closest I can ever get is explaining why it is difficult, like describing "cold" and "wet" to someone who has never experienced either.  In those cases do we keep trying to explain cold and wet to them, or do we just tell them to go jump in the water and see for themselves?

Cheers,
Rob

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAGdKTP5L4_JwmhtKJasdg1e7cYMVgXpjHnwC9wadsV%2BFe%2BUH1w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Janet Asiain]

Everybody who has jumped in (and everyone who hasn’t),

I didn’t say “disallowed” I said “disapproved.” There is, as Greta Garbo said, all the difference. And of course there’s no list, however facetiously one was referred to. But I read a lot of criticism of Saltzman here, which resembles disapproval very closely. 

I think “category error” applies exclusively to logic and is meaningless in other contexts. 

I was suggesting that the sentence about grammar allowing them could be expanded to claim that grammar constrains the expression of certain things as well as allows the expression of (nonsensical) others. 

I’m probably out of my depth here, although I did explore this kind of stuff a lot when I was doing my MA in Linguistics. I did, however, follow a couple of trails that got too steep for me. Maybe this is one of those. 

Anyway, the conversation has taken on a life and direction of its own, as it always does! Nice to hear from y’all!

Janet A

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAN6ZE8LRi38b2COWDd0aifSafydEXnEev4bi-5d8ajdpddnZdg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Dan Kilpatrick]

Janet, All,

Thanks for the correction. I do have to say that I don't sense "disapproval" of what this fellow has said at times here on this platform, maybe it simply doesn't resonate. Approval and disapproval smack a bit too much of knowing, being certain of what we think and our opinions. It feels like prejudgment to me. Certainly things I have read or heard from Saltzman at times resonate here, as in the quote (or translation) you provided here. 

Languaging is part of ourselves, unavoidably. So it seems to me there is a wonderful opportunity to come upon how we are looking at everything even as we might use language. After all, it is a product of thought, which (it seems to me) is often creating the reality we are living in (being separate). So maybe we could say our using language is like a mirror, as K would say......  -Dan

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAGdKTP5tmPdkQ8mQXCyuUnY1TJp5XMAPCycPxg9od9OfLdQHtA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Janet Asiain]

Dan,

I feel/sense that thought a product of language as much as vice versa. In fact neither Is a “product” at all. They are inseparable, in human beings; they are the same looping process. Either can lead us astray. Neither has to. 

I know!😂😂

Janet A

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAGgGDoB8kXsAiHVNUpOQOdTy6EBq9k5DXgNAHDejVvU%3DdJj3iw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Dan Kilpatrick]

Janet, yes and no, at least from my vantage point. Thought, as images, projections, thoughts, making plans, may have been happening before words formed. This is what I was pointing to. But I agree, they are inseparable once in hand, and self-reinforcing. That's the point of being aware of all of this, it seems to me.  

Otherwise we are living in it without realizing it.   -Dan

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/diehard-group/CAGdKTP6TQjPcCj-ifNfEtOf%2ByJfzw7UUfEUHF-bHaNJpy%2B_JsQ%40mail.gmail.com.