Question 27 Verbal Ability and Reading Comprehension 2017 Medium MCQ +3.00 marks · -1.00 negative

A fundamental property of language is that it is slippery and messy and more liquid than solid, a gelatinous mass that changes shape of fit. As Wittgenstein would remind us, “usage has no sharp boundary”. Oftentimes, the only way to determine the meaning of a word is to examine…

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The passage given below is followed by four summaries. Choose the option that best captures the author’s position.

A. Dictionary definitions are like ‘gold standards’artificial, theoretical and dogmatic. Actual meaning of words is their free-exchange value. B. Language is already slippery; given this, accounting for ‘meaning is use’ will only exasperate the problem. That is why lexicographers ’fix’ meaning. C. Meaning is dynamic; definitions are static. The ‘meaning in use’ theory helps us understand that definitions of words are culled from their meaning in exchange and use and not vice versa. D. The meaning of words in dictionaries is clear, fixed and less dangerous and ambiguous than the meaning that arises when words are exchanged between people.

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