“Whenever language is the principal medium of communication […] an idea, a fact, a claim is the inevitable result. The idea may be banal, the fact irrelevant, the claim false, but there is no escape from meaning when language is the instrument guiding one’s thought. […] What else is exposition good for? Words have very little to recommend them except as carriers of meaning. […] If a sentence refuses to issue forth a fact a request a question, an assertion, an explanation, it is nonsense, a mere grammatical shell.”
Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), 51.
“When there is ambiguity in the communication of knowledge, all that is in common are the words that one person speaks or writes and another hears or reads. So long as ambiguity persists, there is no meaning in common between writer and reader. For the communication to be successfully completed, therefore, it is necessary for the two parties to use the same words with the same meanings—in short, to come to terms. When that happens, communication happens, the miracle of two minds with but a single thought.”
How to Read a Book (1972), 97.
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