"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article , Keith G
wrote:



OK, this is difficult.

I'd agree. So bear in mind I'm not quibbling for the sake of trying to
nit-pick with you or find fault. I am just trying to 'raise awarness' as
we
have to say these days that these things can be hard to discuss since
people may use the same words or phrases in critically different ways.
With
that said, I'll continue... :-)


OK, you don't need to qualify your responses to me, but see below...



Put simply:

If someone jacks his kit up on cubes of coconut husk or whatever (don't
dismiss that as impossible, btw) and tells me it has *improved* the
sound, I say he perceives a difference (real or imagined) and therefore
believes there's an improvement. OTOH, in the time-honoured ukra way
(*unheard*) I would not believe it - unless I heard the kit before and
after and could perceive a difference myself?

Does that help?

Not sure. :-)

The problem is that some people might react to the statement that he
"perceives a difference" as meaning that he physically sensed a difference


Yes, that's how I would see it. (Perceive it? ;-)


- e.g if we could have attached some measurement kit to his ears it would
have produced a changed output. Others might take it to mean that his
impression was that there was a difference.


OK. This is where it hangs. If someone says he 'perceives' (can see,
discern, determine, tell &c.) a difference, then I take it that he is under
the impression there is a difference - effectively the same thing, IOW...


When you say "could perceive a difference myself" we have a similar
difficulty. I'd say that if a set of tests were done which could reliably
establish that - by sound alone - you/he repeatedly showed you could tell
the difference, then you did 'sense' or 'detect' a difference, but if such
tests showed no such result then you have 'believed' it.


Sure. The fact that someone says he perceives a difference in no way means
there is one. The proof of that pudding is in testing, as you say. Until
disproved, his belief is based on his apparent perception.



FWIW I'd agree that even 'belived' is difficult in such situations. Hence
my preference is to try and use language that is more based on
evidence-linked statments like those above. The snag is that these can get
long-winded, and may still be problematic....


OK, see below....



It is just that my impression is that I've seen many arguments which were
simply based on those involved not all using the same meaning for terms
like 'perceive'. Hence they argued at cross purposes, or in a way that was
futile. My interest then tends to be to ask what the nature and detail of
the evidence may be.


OK, see he

One of the reasons I am glad English (in its various forms) is becoming the
global language* (despite a tendancy toward homophony - which many
foreigners find difficult to master, apparently) is not so much because of
the exact precision possible with it (especially in the written form) or its
brevity compared with many other languages (record sleeves and multilingual
instruction manuals for example) but because of the high degree of
flexibility (and adaptability) it possesses. In the spoken form, 'fuzzy
English' is very often capable of transferring a clear and precise meaning
while appearing to sound like gibberish, if you catch my drift...?? ;-)

Thus I could flag down passing motorists (say) and get them to listen to a
couple of bits of kit and would be able to ask them if they could determine,
perceive, tell, see, hear, discern &c. any 'difference' between them or I
could ask if they could 'split them', 'pick one', 'rate them', grade them'
and so it goes on - all with much the same outcome. (FWIW, I have found that
if I ever phrased an instruction or question with precisely correct wording
it was invariably queried or I was asked to repeat it!!)

Now, you either get that or you don't!! (If you don't dig it, it's no skin
off my nose!! ;-)

While you are not wrong *per se* to persue a high degree of accuracy in the
words used by people to say that they can [any of the above] differences
between bits of kit, or before and after tweaks/substitutions I do think the
context in which the phrases are used should be be borne in mind.
Understanding the concept is more important than understanding the question
(sign language?) and provided that the word used/misused is generally
understood by all others concerned, I have no problem with the use of the
word 'perceive' in the context we have discussed here - for instance, I'm
often seeing the words 'religion/faith/belief' being confused and misused
here, but it does not matter because I can usually per***** the concept that
is being referenced!! ;-)


*The reason French was never going to make it as the true, long-term global
language (despite being favoured by the Royal Courts in Europe at one time
and being fairly, if thinly, widespread) is because a) There are official
movements to rigidly control the language and the use/meaning of words (from
what I gathered from a proggie on the box recently) and b) French women
don't shave their armpits. The world at large doesn't view either of these
practices favourably....

(Proggie on the box? - Woss 'e me mean, the telly or the wireless? ;-)