I particularly find definitions confusing. Which one is logically correct?
“Oculist” means “eye doctor”.
“Oculist” means eye doctor.
Oculist means “eye doctor”.
Oculist means eye doctor.
I would say 1 is the least incorrect one, but it still has issues. The problem is, in the phrase “A means B”, A refers to a word, a string of letters, but B doesn’t refer to a string of letters. It seems to refer to the concept B is expressing, to a meaning.
The problem with 1 seems to be that quotation can either refer to a word or to the meaning of a word. Let’s say double quotes refer to a word/phrase, while single quotes refer to the meaning of that phrase. Then the correct expression of the above would be this:
I particularly find definitions confusing. Which one is logically correct?
“Oculist” means “eye doctor”.
“Oculist” means eye doctor.
Oculist means “eye doctor”.
Oculist means eye doctor.
I would say 1 is the least incorrect one, but it still has issues. The problem is, in the phrase “A means B”, A refers to a word, a string of letters, but B doesn’t refer to a string of letters. It seems to refer to the concept B is expressing, to a meaning.
The problem with 1 seems to be that quotation can either refer to a word or to the meaning of a word. Let’s say double quotes refer to a word/phrase, while single quotes refer to the meaning of that phrase. Then the correct expression of the above would be this:
“Oculist” means ‘eye doctor’.
That seems to make perfect logical sense.[1]
To clarify, there is a common distinction between
a) term / sign / symbol / word,
b) meaning / intension,
c) reference object / extension.
An unquoted term refers to c), a quoted term refers to either a) or b). Hence my double / single quote disambiguation.