Zappa: Was he For or Far from the People?

HackettFan wrote: ... I brought up arbitrariness to point out that sh*t was a word like any other word. It carries with it certain social effects. The social effects are genuine, but arbitrary. There is no non-arbitrary reason for 'sh*t' to be an obscene word while 'stool' and 'fecal matter' are not. They are as Frank said all just words. Such distinctions as they are made are purely derived from historically grounded social convention. If, by chance, we can claim common ground up to this point, then the real dispute that might remain rests upon whether such conventions should or should not be encoded into law purely on the basis of their own convention. I don't believe so. I still remain with Zappa on this.

Thanks ... I agree with most of this.

From an acting/directing stand point this is probably best explained. It's HOW you say it that makes the difference, and if you are soft, gentle and use the expression it comes off as an adjective and if you are harsh, blunt, this will come off as an insult and this is the problem with English that is not a well defined language ... which helps poetry, but creates issues in a discussion like this, because no one has studied grammar and schools in America do not teach it! They teach ebonics, instead !!!!!!

Convention is a problem ... you must see that, and America is a great example. The conventions in NY are vastly different from the ones in Alabama, Texas or California or Las Vegas ... so if you use the word in a sentence in LV everyone thinks is OK ... but if you use it in the south, the reaction will be different. Likewise if you do this in Berkeley, no one cares, but if you do this at Notrer Dame, you will probably be expelled for being a bad example of some godly bullpucky!

Regardless of how Frank used the terms, they were almost strictly "personal" and not meant to be a social commentary for the whole country, because folks in NY wouldn't give a damn, but folks in Punkadots, Iowa would be all up in arms and insulted that their religious upbringing was shamefully disrespected ... and we haven't even gotten to the middle east, yet! But you know folks at the Roxy, wouldn't care ... they just wanna dance!

Yes, there are moments when it is ... not exactly within the borders of good taste, but then, that's like saying that there was no literature/art in the 20th century that was just as "offensive" but no one said anything, or simply hid it from your eyes? C'mon ... let's do an artist and take a pee on the canvas, and when that huge thing makes it to the big museum in NY, and everyone thinks its magnificent ... and how the fudge do you think that is any different than a set of words by Frank, or you and I swearing? ....

I find that in the open era/ear of the media, that we are losing our own abililty to discern anything ... we're getting stupid'er instead! We lose the ability to define ourselves and have to accuse everyone else, thrown stones and crucify them! And then we think that we're better off than all those other poor folks out there ... who will likely throw all kinds of things at your thoughts anyway!

So very weird!!! Sometimes I hate Frank Zappa discussions ... it's all pee and poh and everyone wants to ______________________________ ( !!! ).

Edited by moshkito - March 10 2015 at 14:05

Brainstormer wrote: Hackettfan: I really don't want to go into this with you. I could retract every point you've made. Everyone knows what F@$k means, and why they say it. I think even the post-modernist stance of the universality of subjectivity is just a meme of the present to be weighed. You seem to be saying the deep strcture is arbitrary...that's pretty odd, IMHO.   The reason why it is deep is because it's the true form, the surface structure creates greater "generations" and thus is more "arbitrary." There isn't even objective philosophical language perhaps in our discourse to arrive at anything, and this isn't the place to go on about it.

Deep Structure or Surface Structure are theoretical constructs that are particular to a specific era of theory that Chomsky himself no longer subscribes to. Universal Grammar (UG) is a term that will better transcend specific eras and changes in theory. You're right that UG is some portion of sentence grammar (syntax) that is theoretically not arbitrary because it is universal. This is purely a matter of theory, however. It is not the result of any aspect of structure that can actually be observed, and there are no shortage of competing theories with competing views on the matter. (For myself and for the record, I find Chomsky's politics more palatable than his approach to linguistic theory). Whatever determination one wishes to make about this, Chomsky maintains that the internal operations of UG are completely disconnected from other cognitive processes. It is an autonomous language organ. So, once again, social dynamics do not bear any relevance to UG. I refer you to Chomsky's discussions of i-language versus e-language. The upshot of this is, as I said, Chomsky was the worst linguist for you to cite.

I brought up arbitrariness to point out that sh*t was a word like any other word. It carries with it certain social effects. The social effects are genuine, but arbitrary. There is no non-arbitrary reason for 'sh*t' to be an obscene word while 'stool' and 'fecal matter' are not. They are as Frank said all just words. Such distinctions as they are made are purely derived from historically grounded social convention. If, by chance, we can claim common ground up to this point, then the real dispute that might remain rests upon whether such conventions should or should not be encoded into law purely on the basis of their own convention. I don't believe so. I still remain with Zappa on this.

Edited by HackettFan - March 01 2015 at 11:34

A buddy of mine once asked, frustrated, "why is it that you have to cut through so much bullsh*t when listening to Zappa?" I immediately snapped, "that bullsh*t is music! Why don't ya try it sometime!" It was a fairly heated moment. Some people can't take the unrelenting abuse of Frank's music, but it's also true that less people would adore the second side of Abbey Road if it were one track under one title. It's all about the size of the bites. 

ExittheLemming wrote: HackettFan wrote: Actually, I am a linguist in real life. One of the first points in opening any intro course involves the idea of being able to deliberate on the structure of language while abstracting away from its sociological context, which is just as arbitrary as the structure. Sorry to go way off topic (that's correct, I know squat about linguistics) but is onomatopoeia an exception to this arbitrariness? e.g. words like 'cuckoo' 'woof' 'meow' 'kerrang!' etc. Similarly, do terms of endearment or affection, persuasion etc tend to deploy softer mellifluous sounds than those used for curses, scolding, warning, admonishing etc in all languages?. (The first bit of any sound ain't called the attack portion by accident) If so, isn't this a deliberate choice by the speaker to imbue the words with the intent?

Words will have meaning no matter what. Words will be imbued with intent when they're used to communicate. It doesn't matter for that whether they're arbitrary or not. Communicative intent, however, has to be interpreted by hearer, and the interpretation can sometimes bear little relation to what a speaker intended. This is called perlocutionary force, which introduces another different sort of arbitrariness. For example, raising one's voice could be interpreted as anger, or misinterpreted as anger when it's really just an extra effort to be heard. Off color language can be used to antagonize someone, but not necessarily. It could be used to establish consolidarity, as anyone who's been out with their drinking buddies knows. If you think about it, probably very few artists who use off color language are not trying to piss their intended listeners off. So, I don't think referencing the intent of the communication advances any argument in favor of censorship. It gets even more complicated if a narrative is involved (which may well be the case with Prog), because how do you properly discern what the author's intent is when all you have to work with is a fictional world filled only with the thoughts of fictional characters?

Onomatopoeia is indeed generally spoken of as being partially non-arbitrary in that the onomatopoeic word bears a relationship to a characteristic of the thing it signifies (iconicity). It's also arbitrary too, because the representation of the sound differs by convention. We say cockledoodledoo for the sound of a rooster. The word for chicken in Comanche is also the sound they say is made by a rooster, but it comes out as kokoraa. So, it's still ultimately a matter of convention. There are some other word types, one of which you mentioned, that have some partial iconicity. The overall footprint that these sort of things have any lexicon is rather minor.

Arbitrariness in language structure is subject to some nuance based upon one's theoretical dispositions. I adhere to theories that claim that grammar is influenced by general cognitive processes. But even with this, the best one can normally say is that a given grammatical fact is "well motivated by" some other mental process, rather than being "determined by" it. And oftentimes there are multiple competing motivations.


Edited by HackettFan - February 28 2015 at 11:24

brainstormer wrote: HackettFan wrote: brainstormer wrote: I don't think Zappa is the Uber Genius that some make him out to be (I don't think some other ones are either that are called such by proggers).   I think he was just an above average rock musician who had a hyper vigilance to make music, and he made some "classical" music.  His comments on "they're just words" is pretty meaningless when you get into linguistic studies.  Words are very, very important, for what they symbolize, what they cause in human behavior.  I think the "good book" said a lot about that.  Actually, I am a linguist in real life. One of the first points in opening any intro course involves the idea of being able to deliberate on the structure of language while abstracting away from its sociological context, which is just as arbitrary as the structure. To me, the less government is in the business of enforcing arbitrary sociological conventions the better. I'm with Zappa on this.

"You can tell a pioneer by the arrows in his back."-Peter Kember of Spacemen 3.

Edited by SteveG - February 27 2015 at 16:38

timothy leary wrote: Why did Zappa live in Laurel Canyon with the rest of the musicians? Lived next door to Joni Mitchell. He was part of the movement.He was not on the outside looking in, he was on the inside looking out. If he was not a hippie maybe he was a dental floss technician in Montana. Beats me, I really like his music and his use of comedy as satire is spot on for the time period.A giant.

HackettFan wrote: brainstormer wrote: I don't think Zappa is the Uber Genius that some make him out to be (I don't think some other ones are either that are called such by proggers).   I think he was just an above average rock musician who had a hyper vigilance to make music, and he made some "classical" music.  His comments on "they're just words" is pretty meaningless when you get into linguistic studies.  Words are very, very important, for what they symbolize, what they cause in human behavior.  I think the "good book" said a lot about that.  Actually, I am a linguist in real life. One of the first points in opening any intro course involves the idea of being able to deliberate on the structure of language while abstracting away from its sociological context, which is just as arbitrary as the structure. To me, the less government is in the business of enforcing arbitrary sociological conventions the better. I'm with Zappa on this.

I don't think Zappa is the Uber Genius that some make him out to be (I don't think some other ones are either that are called such by proggers).   I think he was just an above average rock musician who had a hyper vigilance to make music, and he made some "classical" music.  His comments on "they're just words" is pretty meaningless when you get into linguistic studies.  Words are very, very important, for what they symbolize, what they cause in human behavior.  I think the "good book" said a lot about that. 

Why did Zappa live in Laurel Canyon with the rest of the musicians? Lived next door to Joni Mitchell. He was part of the movement.He was not on the outside looking in, he was on the inside looking out. If he was not a hippie maybe he was a dental floss technician in Montana. Beats me, I really like his music and his use of comedy as satire is spot on for the time period.A giant.