The degree to which his definition is “very different” is not clear. Definitions vary at least slightly from person to person all the time but we don’t make long semantic declarations in normal conversation unless it serves some specific functional purpose.
The degree to which his definition is “very different” is not clear.
I disagree. I think it’s clear that hardly any children use this novel definition of Santa Claus. But if you’re right, then it’s imperative to make it clear before employing your own definition which would serve to mislead.
Definitions vary at least slightly from person to person all the time but we don’t make long semantic declarations in normal conversation unless it serves some specific functional purpose.
But this is not a slight difference, it’s a huge and unusual difference in a commonly used term. The functional purpose here is to avoid lying.
We do not have to meticulously caveat that when we discuss the concept of “night” we are not talking about the phenomenon of the Sun moving away from our position on the Earth disc to a point where mountains cast our current position in shadow but rather the phenomenon of the Earth rotating away from facing our current position towards the Sun in order to avoid “lying” to any Flat-Earth believers who are listening. In fact I don’t think discussions arranging a meeting with a group of Flat Earthers “tomorrow night” would require any such caveats or explanations nor incur any case of “lying,” despite what are presumably somewhat different conceptions of what “night” is. Such minor differences are for the purposes of such a conversation basically completely negligible.
The child can engage his friends in conversations about what gifts Santa Claus brought him.
Is the child being clear with his friends that by Santa Claus he means something very different than they do? If not then he is lying to his friends.
The degree to which his definition is “very different” is not clear. Definitions vary at least slightly from person to person all the time but we don’t make long semantic declarations in normal conversation unless it serves some specific functional purpose.
I disagree. I think it’s clear that hardly any children use this novel definition of Santa Claus. But if you’re right, then it’s imperative to make it clear before employing your own definition which would serve to mislead.
But this is not a slight difference, it’s a huge and unusual difference in a commonly used term. The functional purpose here is to avoid lying.
We do not have to meticulously caveat that when we discuss the concept of “night” we are not talking about the phenomenon of the Sun moving away from our position on the Earth disc to a point where mountains cast our current position in shadow but rather the phenomenon of the Earth rotating away from facing our current position towards the Sun in order to avoid “lying” to any Flat-Earth believers who are listening. In fact I don’t think discussions arranging a meeting with a group of Flat Earthers “tomorrow night” would require any such caveats or explanations nor incur any case of “lying,” despite what are presumably somewhat different conceptions of what “night” is. Such minor differences are for the purposes of such a conversation basically completely negligible.
Again, I’m not talking about minor differences. Children care an awful lot about whether Santa Claus as usually defined exists. This is not small.