It depends on what the meaning of “is” is.
The meaning of words has become so blurred by past usage that 'abstract' is identified with 'vague' and 'unreal,' and 'inwardness' with a sort of traditional beatitude... The conception of the word 'plastic' has also been limited by individual interpretations.
A signal is comprehended if it serves to make us notice the object or situation it bespeaks. A symbol is understood when we conceive the idea it presents.
Words have meaning. And their meaning doesn't change.
A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged. It is the skin of a living thought and may vary in color and context according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
You rely on a sentence to say more than the denotation and the connotation; you revel in the smoke that the words send up.
At a certain point, what people mean when they use a word becomes its meaning.
Language operates between literal and metaphorical signification.
Words take on many different meanings.
Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.
In common use almost every word has many shades of meaning, and therefore needs to be interpreted by the context.
For the signifier is a unit in its very uniqueness, being by nature symbol only of an absence.
To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.
For me, words are just words, nothing else.
The way I write, words can means lots of different things.
Language is a mixture of statement and evocation.
I'm well-read as far as literary fiction, but I wanted to make better decisions about my writing, to use words or phrases more confidently by learning how your words can be interpreted, the shades of meaning, the different connotations.
Meaning, however, is no great matter.
Titles are but nicknames, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it.
Words have not only a definition... but also the felt quality of their own kind of sound.
The perception of what a thing is and the perception of what it means are not separate, either.
Indian nouns are extremely connotive; that is, the name does more than simply denote the thing to which it belongs - in denoting the object, it also assigns to it some quality or characteristic.
There is the name and the thing; the name is a sound which sets a mark on and denotes the thing. The name is no part of the thing nor of the substance; it is an extraneous piece added to the thing, and outside of it.
