1JohnRoss// ene 14, 2009 at %H:%M 08Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:07:06 +000006.
I had deliberately overlooked David Beaver’s treatment of Orwell’s sixth rule, “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous,” which he considers “even more useless and peculiar than the others.” Mark Liberman (Mr Language Log himself) has clarified that the title “Orwell’s Liar” refers to “the famous “liar paradox”, in which certain kinds of statements about the truth of statements lead to logical paradoxes. His [David Beaver’s] point was that statements about breaking rules can in principle lead to similar problems, and that Orwell’s final writing rule arguably has this problem.” So that’s that sorted out, then.
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1 JohnRoss // ene 14, 2009 at %H:%M 08Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:07:06 +000006.
I had deliberately overlooked David Beaver’s treatment of Orwell’s sixth rule, “Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous,” which he considers “even more useless and peculiar than the others.” Mark Liberman (Mr Language Log himself) has clarified that the title “Orwell’s Liar” refers to “the famous “liar paradox”, in which certain kinds of statements about the truth of statements lead to logical paradoxes. His [David Beaver’s] point was that statements about breaking rules can in principle lead to similar problems, and that Orwell’s final writing rule arguably has this problem.” So that’s that sorted out, then.
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