Philo & Sophia · 754 AUC

Four Things Called "Word"

In which nobody learns any grammar yet, and everybody needs to

The third alcove off the great colonnade has a window that faces the harbour, which is a mistake in an alcove meant for study, because on a bright morning the whole sea comes in and lies on the floor in a white square, and nine pupils would rather look at it than at their tablets. Sophia has never had the window blocked. She says a teacher who cannot hold a class against the sea should find easier work.

Philo arrived early and sat on the bench by the door, which is how he learned that Marcos arrives late on purpose, so that everyone has to watch him come in.

Sophia. Yesterday a man came to this door with a question. He asked: when it is written that God spoke, and the world came to be — what sort of word is a word like that? It is a good question. He asked it badly. Today we are going to find out why, and by the end you will all be able to ask it properly, which is most of the work of answering it.

Marcos. It's not a question at all. It's a story about a god shouting at the dark.

Sophia. Thank you. Hold that; we shall want it later. First — Demetria, say the word stone.

Demetria. Stone.

Sophia. Did a stone come out of your mouth?

Demetria. …No.

Sophia. What came out?

Demetria. Air. A noise.

Sophia. Air, shaped. That noise is the first thing we call a word — and notice that it is a thing you can point at. It can be loud or soft. It can be said in a hurry. It can be written down, and then it is not air at all but ink, and you can spill water on it. Put that on your tablet. A word is a sign you can see or hear.

The first sense — the word as a sign

The sound in the air; the marks on the papyrus. It has a length, a shape, a spelling. It is the only one of the four you can spill water on.

Sophia. Marcos. In your house, what do the servants call a stone?

Marcos. Lapis. We're Roman.

Sophia. So there are Romans in this city walking about saying lapis, and Greeks saying lithos, and in the Delta quarter they say even. Three noises. Now — when the Roman says lapis and the Greek says lithos, are they thinking about two different things?

Marcos. Obviously not.

Sophia. Obviously not. So the noise is not the meaning, or changing the noise would change the meaning, and a man would only have to move to Rome to turn all his stones into something else. The noise is a sign; the meaning is what the sign is for. That is the second thing we call a word. Philo — this is where you went wrong yesterday, so you may as well say it yourself.

Philo. The thought. The meaning in the mind.

Sophia. Yes. And where did the sign and the meaning get joined together?

Philo. …By agreement? People agreed on it?

Sophia. By agreement. Which is why you must learn the agreement before you can speak, and why a baby howls for a year first. Nothing about the noise lithos is stony. We simply all consented, long ago, to let it stand for the thought.

The second sense — the word as a meaning

The thought the sign stands for. Greek, Latin and Hebrew have three signs for it and one meaning between them. The joining of sign to meaning is a matter of agreement, not of nature.

Sophia. Now. Demetria, is the thought in your head heavy?

Demetria. No.

Sophia. But a stone is heavy. So the thought is not the stone either. There is the noise; there is the thought; and out there, in the road, quite indifferent to both, there is the thing — which would go on being hard and grey and heavy if every Greek and Roman and Jew in Alexandria fell silent tonight and never spoke again. That is the third thing we call a word. When you say hand me that word you do not mean a noise and you do not mean a thought. You mean the thing.

Marcos. Then there are only three, and you said four.

Sophia. I did. Stand up.

Marcos. …What?

Sophia. Stand up.

(He stood up. The class enjoyed this very much.)

Sophia. I said two words and a boy who did not want to stand is standing. Was that a noise? It was. Was it a meaning? It was. Was it a thing out in the road? It was not — and yet something happened in the world when I said it that did not happen before. Sit down, Marcos, and tell me what kind of word that was.

Marcos. (sitting) An order.

Sophia. A word that does. Not a word that describes a deed — a word that is the deed. When the magistrate says you are married, the two are married; he has not reported anything, he has made it so. When a father names his child, the child is named. These are the words that make.

The third and fourth senses

Third — the word as the thing. The stone in the road, which is what the meaning is a meaning of. It does not depend on us.

Fourth — the word as a deed. An utterance that does not describe the world but alters it: a command, a vow, a naming, a sentence passed. Saying it is doing it.

Sophia. Philo. Ask me your question again.

Philo. When it is written that God spoke and the world came to be — I want to know which of the four it is. And I think… I think it cannot be the first, because there was no air yet to carry the noise. And it cannot be the third, because the thing is what came after.

Sophia. Go on.

Philo. So it is the fourth. It is a word that does. But then the second is inside it, because a deed must have a meaning or it is only a noise, and the world that came to be is… the meaning made into a thing.

Marcos. That's still just a story.

Sophia. Perhaps. But it is now a story you can argue with, which it was not this morning. You said it was a god shouting at the dark. Shouting is the first sense. Nobody in this room is claiming the first sense. If you want to attack the thing, Marcos, attack the thing that is actually there — and to do that you have to know what sort of word it is. That is the whole of today's lesson, and it is the whole of the year. Nearly every argument you will ever hear is two people using one word for two different things and neither of them noticing.

Marcos. Then what's tomorrow's lesson?

Sophia. Tomorrow we begin sorting the signs into their kinds — because there are only eight, and once you can name them you will never again mistake a thing for a doing. Bring a clean tablet. And Marcos: come late tomorrow, and you may do it standing.

The lesson in a table — for copying out

Sense	What it is	Test question	Example
1. Sign	The sound in the air or the ink on the page	Could you spell it? Could you shout it?	"Stone has five letters."
2. Meaning	The thought the sign stands for	Would a Roman and a Greek share it?	"I don't know the word for it in Latin."
3. Thing	The reality the meaning is about	Would it still be there if nobody spoke?	"Hand me that word—no, the heavy one."
4. Deed	An utterance that changes the world by being said	Did saying it make something so?	"You have my word."

Exercises

A. Which sense?

For each, say which of the four is meant. (Some are arguable — say why.)

"Don't use that word at the table."
"I gave him my word and I shall keep it."
"There's no word in Greek for what I mean."
"The word stone is shorter than the word mountain."
"Send word to your mother."
"A word to the wise is enough."
"I name this ship the Isis."
"He is a man of few words."

B. Sophia's rule

Find an argument — in a book, at the table, between brothers — where two people are using one word in two senses. Write down the word, and write down each sense. Then write the sentence that would have ended the argument.

C. Marcos's objection

Marcos said the Genesis account was "a god shouting at the dark." Explain, in three sentences, which sense of word he was assuming, and why Sophia said he had not yet attacked what was actually there. (Note that she did not tell him he was wrong — only that he was aiming at the wrong target. What is the difference?)

Want to go deeper?

The four senses of "word" in this lesson — sign, meaning, thing, and deed — come from a much older tradition than this library. The Grammar Beneath the Grammar traces them back to their source, for anyone ready to see the scaffolding once the building is already standing.

Teacher's notes

What this lesson is doing. Before the parts of speech can be taught as anything more than labels, the pupil has to see that a word is a sign — a thing standing for a thing. Senses 1–3 are the sign, the meaning, and the reality; keeping them apart is the foundation the whole of grammar and logic is built on. The fourth sense is a bonus, but it is the one children find most striking, and it is what lets the lesson answer Philo's question rather than dodge it.
The pivot. Everything turns on "Did a stone come out of your mouth?" It is worth doing aloud with a real object in your hand. Younger pupils will laugh; that laugh is the concept landing.
Marcos. His objection is not there to be squashed. Note that Sophia neither agrees nor refutes — she tells him his aim is off. If your pupil is the sort to sympathise with Marcos, let them; Exercise C is written for exactly that pupil, and it asks them to make his objection better, not to abandon it.
Answers to A (with room to argue): 1 — sign. 2 — deed. 3 — meaning. 4 — sign. 5 — meaning (a message). 6 — meaning, drifting toward deed. 7 — deed. 8 — sign. Numbers 5 and 6 are the productive ones; if your pupil defends a different answer well, the lesson has worked.
Where it goes next. Sophia's closing line sets up the parts of speech: eight kinds of sign, and the first distinction — a thing versus a doing — is the noun and the verb.