Who cares what words actually mean?
Uponnothing and Left Outside have already dismantled Richard Littlejohn's feeble attempts to understand the difference between weather and climate, in which he concludes that weather and climate must be the same thing, even though there are different words for them:
Ah, say the 'experts', there's a difference between 'weather' and 'climate'. They are forced to resort to semantics to sustain their insistence that the science is settled, even though they are all sitting there shivering like brass monkeys. They'd still cling to their belief in man-made warming if Hell froze over.
Luckily for us, we know for sure that hell hasn't frozen over, because Littlejohn has yet to write anything funny ever. But what I want to focus on in particular is what is either genuine coarse stupidity or wilful ignorance. After all, the reason why there are different words for different things is often because they're different. Climate means something very different from weather, although they both talk about rain, and sun, and so on. Either this is too hard for Littlejohn to understand - and I do wonder sometimes - or he's decided that he can dismiss what anyone else says on the basis that they're simply using two different words that really mean the same thing.
Using Littlejohn's reasoning, there's no difference other than semantics between a cat and a dog - if I think they're the same thing, then they're the same thing, and it's only people trying to pull the wool over our eyes who try to use different words to describe them. It's the same kind of idea that people use to tell you that the BNP are left wing, or that apples are hovercraft - I think this, therefore no matter what other people say, or what the words actually mean, it doesn't matter. I'm aware that using a dictionary definition in any argument automatically makes you lose (I can't remember whose law this is, but I'm fairly pleased it exists) but such definitions exist for a reason: different words mean different things.
Or, to put it another way, you could say that if I call Richard Littlejohn an ignorant twat, I'm actually calling him a genius. Because there's no difference, other than semantics, between 'ignorant twat' and 'genius', they're completely interchangeable things.
I'm pretty sure that's what Littlejohn tells himself, anyway.
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January 10th, 2010 - 12:32
It always shocks me how ignorant people are on this matter. I've had people (one of them a creationist with a PhD, no less) tell me that the Romans used to grow grapes in Yorkshire, as if that disproves climate change.
People like Littlejohn don't seem to realise that the melting ice caps means the Gulf Stream is slowing down, meaning that although the world will be getting warmer, Britain will actually be colder.
January 10th, 2010 - 12:56
You makes I laugh you does.
January 10th, 2010 - 13:52
Posts like this are why Littlejohn can get away with dismissing climate/weather as semantics. Criticising someone for using the "wrong" word, "incorrect" punctuation or "not knowing what words mean" is fairly presumptuous, assuming that you somehow know better about the very subjective meanings of words and rules of English. It's then very easy to represent this as some kind of snobbery against ordinary working people, even if your only claim to be one is that you're racist, homophobic and occasionally affect a cockney accent in print. But he is basically right that this is a semantic argument, and there are two things we as half-sane people who aren't paid to make up right-wing horseshit can do.
The first is to analyse why he uses words the way he does. He can dismiss climate and weather as semantics because he doesn't understand the first thing about climate science, or is deliberately misrepresenting it because he assumes his readership won't.
Alternatively, we can pick him up on his very, very simple mistakes with language. Like not understanding what the 'global' in 'global warming' means. Something that betrays an ignorance and solipsism that would embarrass most five-year-olds. But picking him up on his use of English will unavoidably come across as both petty and snobby, both of which ultimately play into his hands.
January 10th, 2010 - 14:37
Alex, you appear not to have read what I wrote.
January 10th, 2010 - 14:59
Your general argument is basically that he's got the science all wrong, yeah, but you've phrased it in slightly pedantic linguistic terms. You've done it with the title, you've used phrases like "what words actually mean" as if it's objective, and all that stuff about cats and dogs and apples and hovercrafts is basically the old humpty-dumpty straw man that if words don't exclusively mean what I think they should mean, well they could mean anything.
Like I said, correcting people's use of language rather than analysing it is counter-productive. It enables Littlejohn to portray himself as the victim of snobbery by a liberal elite, rather than a liar and a bully who gets paid far more in a month for doing fuck all than most people get in a year for doing something actually useful.
January 10th, 2010 - 15:28
Remember: a) who Littlejohn et al are writing for – a closely researched target audience b) why they are writing that kind of column comment – to get a reaction c) what they would be paid for each column , etc. – a lot of money d) where they are – the closed world of media people e) when this happens – i.e. traditionally the day a come-and-gone that day newspaper comes out (now rapidly becoming permanently available though) f) why it's published – make up your own conspiracy theory.
@notsofriendlyhumanist – try getting the people you mention into conversation about the influence of the Moon and the Sun on tides – Marty Feldman eye-rolling moments almost guaranteed to follow…
January 10th, 2010 - 17:21
It's the kind of willing ignorance that comes from knowing better, but not actually wanting to.
For example, there are two types of Heat.
That of the strength of spices, and that of the warmth of the food. Here, Littlejohn is knowingly confusing the two terms in order to avoid the inconvenient fact.
January 10th, 2010 - 17:30
I like being pedantic. I'm pretty sure, also, that being paid nearly a million pounds a year to have a massively superior readership will be some comfort to Littlejohn when he comes under attack from a blog that I do in my spare time and which he's probably never read, and, even if he has, he doesn't care about. I don't think me being pedantic is really what's stopping the floodgates from bursting open. But it's nice to be thought of as influential.
January 10th, 2010 - 17:35
I wasn't posting out of concern for Littlejohn's feelings, I assure you. He makes a lot of political and financial capital out of taking an anti-intellectual, man-of-the-people stance on things. Attacking him for not knowing the lingo, rather than for being too thick to understand that other countries might have different weather, is only going to help with that.
January 10th, 2010 - 17:38
"…one of them a creationist with a PhD, no less"
If a creationist told me the sky was blue I'd be looking for independent verification. But then I've never seen a creationist say anything accurate about science.
January 10th, 2010 - 18:15
Perhaps a simple analogy might help poor little Littlejohn.
Something like…
weather = book
climate = library
OK it's not perfect – e.g. you can select what book what you want, but it conveys the general relationship.
Only problem is that I guess someone as thickly obstinate as him might argue that the difference between books and libraries is also just semantics…
January 10th, 2010 - 19:10
Speaking of not really understanding what worlds mean, there seem to be a growing number of tabloid newspaper message board obsessives who seem to be under the impression that the present government are "communists". Is it any wonder they can't tell weather and climate appart?
January 11th, 2010 - 01:21
Actually Alex, this is how it went:
*Commonly, people see a cold snap and automatically think that that means global warming is bull
*People more in the know respond that actually a cold snap is just weather, and the problem is that the climate is changing. You can still have cold snaps and global warming. "Climate" and "Weather" are two different things.
*Littlejohn is ready for this. H dismisses the difference between "weather" and "climate" as mere semantics.
*Anton comes along and makes it clear that the fact that words mean different things is kinda important.
*You, Alex, then join in and say that words don't have objective definitions (kinda true, in the sense that words can change meaning over time, but their definition could technically be looked at as how it is in the dictionary or what the consensus in society it is or whatever)
Well let's accept what you say. Does that mean Anton is wrong?
Well no. For you see, what matters is not that the words "weather" and "climate" mean two different things, rather what matters is that "weather" and "climate" are being used by Anton and the hypothetical person in bullet point 2 to mean two different things. Weather is a placeholder for "short term atmospheric events", climate is a placeholder for "weather averaged out over long periods of time". It doesn't matter whether you use "weather" and "climate", or "Boogaloo" and "Littlejohncuntvariable". What matters is that Littlejohn is confusing two different concepts. The words are placeholders for those concepts.
So yes, Littlejohn is totally wrong, because semantics (i.e. the meaning of words rather than the words themselves) do matter.
January 11th, 2010 - 12:31
I never claimed Littlejohn wasn't wrong, I never even claimed that he'd understood the concepts. I pointed out that focusing on the place-holders, and criticising him for his use of language rather than his bollocks science plays right into his hands.
January 11th, 2010 - 13:13
i just find it so gruesomely fascinating how one really cold winter in the UK – one small country – disproves all of the scientific evidence for climate change! it's like – have these people not heard of the drought in australia? have they checked the recent footage of ethiopia.
the UK is not the world! it's so unbelievable!