-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Walker <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tuesday, January 06, 1998
7:47 PM
Subject: Why jumbo shrimp is a variable cost
�.
>Variable cost is an oxymoron. Cost: from the Latin *constare*, "to stand
>together". As one might suspect, constare is also the etymological root for
>constant. "Fixed cost" is therefore redundant.
Constant may be the oxymoron - at least in the etymological sense of the
word, "sharp" and "foolish". Alfred Korzybski, a Polish count delivered
papers at U of T in the early thirties that he later developed into a thick
book called 'Science and Sanity' and into the foundations of the field of
General Semantics. One of his many points was that words are variables.
Korzybski said that Newton and Einstein had pointed towards time as a
dimension and that everything changes in time. Every moment molecules are
moving, even if we don't perceive structural changes until shrimp molecules
enter our noses. He said that everything is variable. With time
changing, nothing is ever equal to even itself.
He also pointed out that many statements resemble propositional functions;
that �x = y� is close to �Leafs are great� or �God is love.� If we accept
time as a dimension, these types of statements are quite meaningless unless
we precisely define what God. at love and what time frame we are
referring to.
>Q: What do you get if you cross an oxymoron with a redundancy?
>A: A profession.
Or perhaps a living language. According to Funk�s book on etymology, glamour
and grammar were the same word back when so few people knew grammar that it
was glamorous to read and write. The old English letters apparently played a
roll in splitting the word into two. Invert, convert and pervert were once
close cousins with innocuous meanings. Today, convert is a word no one wants
to hear. And don�t forget that fizz was an archaic word for fart before
sipping
that Coke.
�
>But the irony is that _all_ costs are variable to a greater or lesser
>extent. Everything is provisional. "All that is solid melts into air."
Korzybskiian Accountancy?
David Woodill
Orillia, Ontario
P.S. Korzybski might be spelt Korzybsky. I'm not sure.
