We asked you if a burrito was a sandwich, and you said ‘no’. We asked you if ravioli was a sandwich and you said ‘heck no’. We asked you if an ice cream sandwich was a sandwich and things…started to get a little murky. This isn’t just a sandwich problem: you can also have similar arguments about what counts as a cup, a bird, a fish, furniture, art, and more!
So wait…does any word mean anything anymore? Have we just broken language?? It’s okay, linguistics has a solution!
In this episode, your hosts Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne get enthusiastic about why deciding what’s in and what’s out of the definition of a word is so dang tricky, why people love to argue about it, and how prototype theory solves all the “is X a Y” arguments once and for all. {listen}