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In the Bible, one of the Ten Commandments states: “Thou shalt not
kill.” Regardless of religious preferences and beliefs, everyone knows
of this Supreme command; but do they know what it means? Consider this:
does “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not murder” mean the same
thing? By its common definition, to “murder” means to kill unlawfully
or at least unjustifiably. However, centuries ago, the Ten Commandments
handed to Moses simply mentioned "kill". There was no mention at all
whether “to kill” distinguished between the lawful or unlawful taking
of a life, or for that matter if the life even had to be that of a
human. In today’s society, it appears “Thou shalt not murder” is more
appropriate than “Thou shalt not kill,” as “kill” denotes a just and
lawful reason to take a life.
It then becomes clear that the way each person defines a certain
word affects the meaning and intent of a statement or discussion. It is
essential that a word be defined in a way that clearly illustrates its
true essence. To make a definition successful, three criteria must be
followed to avoid confusion. Possibly the most difficult condition to
preserve when explaining a word’s meaning to someone is to not give
that person only examples of the word. When an example is the only
source of knowledge of a word’s meaning, a problem occurs. One must
take into account that those examples could encompass ideas other than
the true nature of the word, or perhaps not fully cover other
characteristics of the word. This leads to the second criterion of a
successful definition. A definition cannot be too general, yet at the
same time it cannot be too limited. Finally, the third condition of a
successful definition dictates that a form of the word or an equally
obscure word cannot be used to redefine the word. To break the cycle,
terms more familiar than the one being defined must be used. Though
these three conditions are not absolute, they do lead to a clearer,
less vague definition of words.
As seen in the initial example, “murder” is commonly defined as
killing unlawfully or unjustifiably. However, it is not specified if
this definition is dependent on what is being killed or what is
actually killing. Perhaps it means only living things, for example
people and animals, can murder or be murdered. It is also accepted that
something such as an idea or belief can be killed through doubt. For
example, if the government bans free speech of ideas of change or
revolution these ideas were killed by unconstitutional means. Despite
the method, these ideas are dead; but does that mean that they were
murdered? By the accepted understanding of murder, an idea is not
usually thought of as the target of murder, yet it appears from the
definition given that an idea can be murdered. This definition “to kill
unlawfully or unjustifiably” is therefore too broad as the meaning of
“murder” encompasses more. At the same time, this definition also
appears to be too narrow. Is it really murder if the act was committed
without intent or if it was an accident? Again, by the accepted
understanding, a murder only occurs if it is committed with malicious
and criminal intent. In this case, “to kill unlawfully or
unjustifiably” is too narrow a definition.
The sun is yellow. The business section of the phone book is yellow.
The second light of a stoplight is yellow. Granted, these are all
examples that describe yellow, yet, in reality, they mean so much more.
Some would argue that the sun is in fact orange, and at times even
described as red or white. The “yellow pages” of the phone book also
have other colors such as black, red, or blue. Perhaps the second light
of the stoplight in a normal lane of traffic is “yellow,” but consider
a turn lane with 5 different signals on it. Does “second” instantly
mean second from the top, or could it be second from the bottom? In
this case, it is possible that the light is in fact “green” or “red.”
Though sometimes these examples all point to “yellow,” it is also seen
that “red” can be common to all as well. Simply giving examples of a
word leads to a flawed understanding of said word.
A game is a sport. A sport is football. Football is a game. The word
has been defined, but in such a way that it essentially has not. The
full circle is complete and one is no closer to truly understanding the
extent of what a game can be; essential the word is being defined with
itself. This definition, in fact, appears to fail all three criteria of
a good definition. Only examples are given thus leading to too narrow a
definition of what a game is. Because there are several denotations of
“game,” this method only provides a “definition” of an athletic game.
This method of defining game is clearly flawed in many ways.
A good definition is sometimes hard to create. Returning to the
first example and attempting to define “murder” does not seem like too
difficult a task. Murder is an intended, unlawful and criminal act of
one human killing another human without provocation or justification.
For the most part, this definition fulfills criterion one; it is not an
example. Secondly, this appears to get at the heart of what a murder
is: not too broad, or too narrow. The third criterion is also met, all
the words used are relatively familiar. For the most part, the
definition captures the essence of the word “murder” in its most common
use. That, however, is where the problem lies; the definition is only
good for the common use of “murder.” It can be seen that one must
follow these three conditions of a definition to gain true knowledge
and understanding of what a word means. It is also evident that
multiple definitions of a word are required to truly encompass its full
meaning and uses.
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