it is not an argument, just examples of expressions. Do people pay attention at the comments or they will upvote an answer just in consideration to what is written as answer (excluding the comments)?
I am looking for common phrases that describe something that appears good but are actually bad.
Edit
Because people say "bad" is vague I will try to sum up the phrase meaning a little better
Something that looks like it will be helpful or advantageous but after use it is hindering.
A tool tha...
Cerberus, see... how words always get some value even if there's no definition given! this is what I mean by word and concept are like two sides of the same paper sheet
@OtavioMacedo interesting!
why do you think you got that idea? can you come up with and explanation?
maybe because for me using nail polish is kind of a big issue, as i was never used to doing this all my life. i began painting my nails this year. maybe it is a trivial thing to most woman;
so you thought it was something related to nails, but not as trivial as painting, and thought of something more daring?
because both words are already associated with a concept to him. if he had a wild imagination as i do, he could picture a bottle of beer filled with iron nails
I mean if you had used it instead of "nail polish" the first time.
You were saying that Otavio had no problem devising a meaning for "nail polish". But that doesn't mean you can always come up with some probable meaning: in many cases, you are just nonplussed.
what I meant was, if you don't know what a word means, you will associate it with some concept taking into consideration the context. your example nail beer involves two known words
Cerb, i have a game for you. let me find the link..
can you remember if you infered automatically? or if you thought "i don't know, i'll find out later"? because you had a concept before looking at the picture
@Tames I could try to come up with possible interpretations. But there would be many, and there would not be one with much greater probability than the others. Unless of course there were more context. If I knew this was some sentence actually uttered by someone in real life, that would be a bit more context, for example. But I do not know that.
@Tames I read the sentence, some associations with each word popped up, but no interpretation of the whole popped up that could explain what the operation was.
@Tames The main area where I lack information is context. That includes the kind of operation this is about as the most salient point. And also whether or not this is a sentence that was supposedly uttered in a real situation.
Otavio, i used some commonplace, as I know it is trivial for women to paint their nails and it is not for me. When you said maybe it is fake nails because I sounded bold, I understood why your option was for fake nails
if an expression is not contextualized, you can explore all possibilities. it is not like "no context no meaning", it is more like "no context, many possible meanings"
If you feel that there is no possible meaning that has more than, say, a 50 % of being the intended or intersubjectively preferred meaning, then it has no definite meaning. In short, I would call it "meaningless".
"Meaningless" is my short way of saying all that you just explored, hehe.
If you ask a question like, "are there more metal fans in Europe or in America?", and you don't have either meaning in mind (you just say the words), is it a meaningful question? And suppose that you meant exactly one of the two possibilities, but I, as the reader, did not know which: would it then be a meaningful question for me? In any case not meaningful enough to answer it or say much about it, except if I gave *two* different answers, thereby going through *all* the possible meanings.
@Tames There's still much more context there. It makes sense when I read it. I don't feel as though I were looking at a forest of possible meanings, many of which as of yet invisible to me.
@Tames That is also a possibility.
But the more abstract it gets, and the less context...
somethings never come to a confrontation, they are kept on the subjective side and never questioned
when it does happen to come up, sometimes people are very surprised and their universe changes
sometimes one person is telling the other "i love you", and the other is thinking "she wants to destroy me", for some reason
it is very hard to make someone change his/her mind sometimes, because he/she thinks he/she already has the definite code
psychoanalysis deals with this
sometimes people don't even listen to what you say, and you may repeat it and the person ignores it. maybe you don't even know the person actually didn't listen/understand. because we are always making assumptions about the other person
But don't you agree that in some cases, when you have a vague sentence, it just isn't worth it to explore the countless possible meanings, if none seem very probable?
@Tames Nice.
We just shouldn't be so focused on the exact form and shape of words and phrases.
And asking "why can't you apply a property to the general concept of that property?" seems to me like asking "why can't a circle be square?": it is by definition that it cannot be so; it is part of the Kantian framework of our thinking, a synthetic proposition a priori, if you will (though I'm not a huge fan of those terms specifically).
i guess i have too many dark thoughts. i'm feeling a little better lately, but the last 18 months of my life have been very dark. i don't consider myself a bad person, i think hell is more related to the suffering
all these meanings that i look for in words, i'm still trying to find some for my own
it is hard to fill them, because utimately, there's no "big truth" behind things, it is something personal, made up. i find it hard to stick to things, because it is like seeing that everything is an illusion
like ambiguities... where people see 1 meaning, i see many possible meanings. where people see communication, i see misunderstanding
maybe for most people, meaninglesness is the "alternative" vision, and they have another one to stick to. meaninglesness is my main vision, i need to find the alternative
kind of. one year ago i was studying something completely different from what i am now. i was doing research on chronobiology. then i switched to psychoanalysis, which is a completely different field
every time a major change happens, i lose my whole structure
it is like having to built up again from scratch, everytime
i have had some stability at least in study, for some months now. but i keep on thinking about what will I be doing in 2 years or 3, if i'll have to move town for post grad etc
i'd like to stay in the same city for the rest of my life. but i know life is not like that
But perhaps doing a bit more social stuff now and then would also be a good idea. Preferably with people who have the same interests. You have probably discussed this with your therapist?
I am looking for common phrases that describe something that appears good but are actually bad.
Edit
Because people say "bad" is vague I will try to sum up the phrase meaning a little better
Something that looks like it will be helpful or advantageous but after use it is hindering.
A tool tha...
lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks
lɪŋˈgwɪstɪks