Friday, February 18, 2011

Words Like Money

Words, like money, are a medium of exchange.  In that context my post on Euphemism is not out of line with the rest of the posts that relate to money in some fashion.  I am, after all, looking at what money really is.  Perhaps to understand what it is there is benefit in exploring how we use other things in a communication interchange as a medium.

In the post Memes, a meme is a unit of cultural expression.  It passes from one person to another, it becomes the means to convey a cultural value from one to another.  So what is the payback in passing a meme like money to convey a value?  Perhaps reinforcement that it was a value.  That is done by not questioning it by accepting it as a given.  Repudiation would reject the value the words as a medium of exchange were intended to convey.  In other words: (is there a pun here?) your words are not accepted as legal tender.  Your money has no value.  Leads to interesting thoughts.  Ralph Nader is saying here, I don't buy your memes that you intend to convey to me with your words.  The words themselves are not legal tender because they do not represent a thought with single grain of conceptual value.  That conceptual value being anything that is anywhere near the truth

Velocity of money is an interesting thing.  How quickly it goes from hand to hand.  There are formulas to express it.  How fast is goes from hand to hand has implications in a bigger scheme of things.

Speed of turnover from one holder to another is a measure of what money is rather than what money does.  Like money, it is an medium of exchange in a transaction of value.  Buy that idea and then maybe the basis of money was in language.  In an organic sense then looking at money in terms of language might give a new view to how the concept of money developed before barter, which is where most money historians start.

I should go google linguistics with some added keyword that might get me to somebody who has this view of how money really got started.

Ha!  My first hit:  "Linguistics - That Is Where The Big Money Is"  A bumper sticker!  Maybe a double meaning here along the lines of linguistics being money as well as how to make Big Money.

Money Talks.  That is an interesting linguistic phrase! Money is an example of Frame Semantics (Linguistics).  Interesting that it uses the example of money.  Maybe this was the context in which the fundamental concept of linguistics that provided a means to establish a different perspective from which a frame is viewed, such a buyer and seller and a means of bringing the two together.

Language as Currency.  Googling that gives and interesting return.  Mostly hitting on the question:  What is a country's Language and Currency.  Probably the two most important things we need to know to communicate there!  There is a closely binding analogy.  Possessing what each is we can participate in the economies of what they do.

The "Economics of Language" is described here as at the fringes of economic study.  Two different languages regarding economics are now being used in Washington.  Maybe the study of the economics of language should be hauled in from the fringes.  When it gets down to such fundamental "starting all over by speaking the same language" things have certainly gotten out of hand.

Haven't they?

If one side has manipulated the language itself to press its advantage, they will not agree to sit down and go over the basics of what the language to be used is.  They own the language, they can make up its meaning and value out of thin air and employ it to further they own agenda to accrue wealth and power....................

Hey, am I talking about Banksters and money or Politicians and Words.

What we have here..... is a failure...... to communicate.... (with a medium of exchange.... by which to trade value.  I own the medium of exchange.)   Whack!   I am communicating with you.  You want to compromise by agreement on the neutrality of the medium of exchange that means I can't load the medium with my own message?  You want me to give up my power to do that?  You mean we each depend on our own ability to formulate and present positions not manipulating the medium of exchange itself in our favor to present them? 

"What we have here is a failure to communicate."  Those were the unspoken words but spoken meaning of the end of the film that was the result of the failure.

Digressed enough for one day.  I think that I got somewhere in all of this.

The idea of money and linguistics is a worthy one and may have more than just academic interest.  People don't understand money.  If there is a close analogy between money and language, which most can understand, perhaps there is a path to better understanding.  The creation and use of the political language in economy of politics by politicians gets us no more than the creation and use of money by Banksters in our financial economy.  Both are heading for geometric growth and devaluation of the underlaying value of their units.

Unit of Words = Unit of Money.

Who owns the words and their meaning value as a medium of exchange?

Who owns the money and its meaning value as a medium of exchange?

Are we going bankrupt, to put it in economic terms in something more important than finance?

Noam Chomsky....Help us!  Tell it like it is!

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