Pedantic

I have on occasion been addressed with the epithet of pedant, I can't think why. I guess I do have a tendency to wish to correct inaccuracies where I find them, or to ensure that my communication is as unambiguous as possible (unless, of course, I am being willfully ambiguous). However, to my mind this serves a practical purpose. As I recently pointed out, I like writing code, which is as close to unambiguous as any language can ever come, and still there are many ways the language can be used to get the desired result.
Ms P and I simply cannot have a discussion about the ambiguity of human language, as she refuses see any ambiguity, whereas I see human communication to be a minefield of ambiguity. In my linguistic world you cannot ever fully understand what another person means when they use a word, as you do not have full knowledge of their understanding of that word.
Take the word 'comfort': the sensations you associate with that word are likely to be event or location specific. It may just be your bed on a cold winter day, but even so, if I've never been you in your bed on a cold day, my closest approximation of your idea of comfort is me in my bed on a cold winter day. OK, so in that instance our individual definitions are fairly comparable and we will have a decent understanding of each other if we use the word 'comfort' because there is sufficient crossover between our two experiences for the translation of sensation to lose little of consequence. For this is what human language is: a way of translating my experience into yours. This translation becomes more difficult when we start dealing with concepts that are less familiar to each of us, or even with concepts that may have broad range. If we look at the word 'few': I always take this to mean a number greater than two but not much greater*, whereas some people will take it to generally mean a number around ten or possibly even greater as indicated by the phrase "quite a few". Subsequently if I asked such a person to get me 'a few' of something, I may end up with more than I bargained for.
One of my favourite books is Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain Fournier, which is sometimes called 'The Wanderer'. However, 'meaulnes' does not mean 'wanderer'; there is no direct translation of the word in English. This could easily be dismissed as high handed French refusal to acknowledge the existence of any other language, but for the fact that such words exist in all languages, indeed entire tenses do or don't exist in other languages; entirely different concepts of linguistic time and therefore our relationship to time. So there are concepts of time that are precluded from some cultures because they are not within the structure of their language. It is clear therefore that language, any language is insufficient to fully communicate human experience, but has the ability to circumscribe it. If we cannot articulate something, how can we be said to have experienced it. This means language can have a control over how we see the world, which was very much the point Orwell was making with newspeak in 1984. The language in that book seems faintly ridiculous for its seemingly hamfisted attempt to redefine common objects or experiences, but Orwell's point is that if you'd grown up with those words, they would simply be natural to you.
There is clearly a worrying aspect to the ability of language to shape people's ideas and attitudes, especially since the language that we have has been inherited from a monotheistic patriarchal system. We are so familiar with aspects of our language that we do not even think about their origins or inferrence. We will assign gender to unknown others based on their profession and our unconscious prejudice. This is partly a fault within our language, as we have no specific gender neutral subject like the French 'on', but we can use 'they' in this context. However, as a rule, we don't. Try changing your default gender assumption next time you are aware of it and see if it impacts on your perception (or indeed anyone else's) of the conversation.
That is a little change of preconception rather than something embedded in language, so perhaps we should consider the impact of the use of the word 'Man' as in mankind. Whilst this word is simply intended to identify the whole of humanity, it is hard not to associate it with the singular noun denoting male gender (they are the same word after all). This implicit association permits the assumption of patriarchal precedence. One can argue that 'Man' means 'mankind', means all humankind, but people will still hear and associate it with 'man', meaning the singular of 'men' and (not necessarily consciously) assume man is the important part of Man. We can know this is not the case, but the language will reaffirm it with every use.
I wonder who first assigned the descriptions of political inclination that are 'right' and 'left'. One would have to assume that it was someone on the right of the political spectrum, because you've missed a trick if you're not associating your cause with all that is correct, with rectitude, with being right. It might just be me, but it seems that those on the right wing of politics take this sense on board. Left wingers (or progressives, to change the referential context) will always present their arguments as rational logical or emotional things to be understood through thought or feeling; right wingers (or conservatives) feel no need to present their argument even as an argument, it is quite simply right, by linguistic definition. If ever there was a good reason to change the political lexicon, that is one. People engaged in ideological battles are aware of the power of language: it is the reason why anti-abortion campaigners refer to themselves as 'pro life', it sounds so much more friendly. More than that, it is a linguistic attempt to close down the argument: only psychopaths are anti life, so how can you, as a rational being, not be pro life? The answer of course is that this is not telling the whole story, that there is a debate to be had about abortion, and there always will be (not necessarily by me, I'm not a woman) and that debate cannot and should not be precluded by linguistic assumption. Indeed it shows an unwillingness to engage in an argument, which is typical of extremists everywhere, for debate leads to understanding and understanding leads to compromise.
So yes, I am a pedant, I try to be careful what words I use, because the words I use define the world I live in and I want it to be a world based on rationality, not assumed precedent.

*in fact I think I have previously confessed that I traditionally interchanged 'few' and 'couple', perhaps as a result of my early contextual encounters with these words.

Piles 2

Some little while ago, I blogged about the pointlessness of the upscaling of the economic models of most large companies and the fact that they brought no discernible advantage apart from a large amount of money to a small amount of people. I can't remember if I said so at the time (I'm certainly not reading all that again), but there are circumstances where upscaling is desirable. Certain industries require large infrastructure that is best managed under one corporate structure, although many fewer than are probably reckoned. In fact many 'large' companies already undermine the argument for monopolistic structures by outsourcing many of their functions. Unfortunately, many people's experience of such arrangements is not good, as the motivation for such outsourcing is rarely anything other than a reduction in costs, which leads in many cases to a commensurate reduction in service. However, a small number of companies have led the way in genuine specialisation,  with IBM being perhaps one of the most extreme and successful examples.
There is another area where upscaling is essential: in the provision of the services that the citizens of any civilized nation expect as a prerequisite: infrastructure, social security, education and healthcare. All of these things are expensive, but fortunately are all delivered to a large enough population (usually) for the economics of scale to be such that small amounts of tax from each individual will cover the costs of delivery. Obviously this doesn't always work, as the UK pension system is discovering, but largely the principle is sound: the combined value of everyone's contribution is greater than (or roughly equal to) the total cost of maintaining the service. In the case of many of the services provided, the total amounts of money involved can be staggeringly large. Large amounts of money have a habit of attracting the sort of captains of industry who believe it is their right to take charge of such large sums of money and in recompense take a (compared to the total sum) small amount of it for themselves. This was the basis of privatisation; the excuse was that the public sector was inefficient and that the efficiency of the private sector would save money. After all, only a comparatively small amount would be taken out as profit compared to the total amount of the public budget, right? Maybe we should look at a case study.
Southern Rail is the rail franchise I have used most over the last ten years and they generally run a good service (contrary to the impression you might get from my Twitter feed), however, they are a subsidised company; as taxpayers, we pay them to run the service whether we subsequently pay them additionally to use it or not. We currently pay somewhere around £40m in subsidy for this route, up from around £20m a few years ago. This is apparently because reductions in passenger numbers were threatening GoVia's profits (GoVia is Southern's parent company). It's worth noting that profit was threatened, not eliminated, and presumably after the subsidy was increased, profits returned to normal. So just to be clear, the government are paying extra so that a private company can make a profit at a time when actual public services are being cut due to lack of money. I'm fairly certain £20m a year would pay for a decent chunk of hospital. I wouldn't really object if the subsidy was paying for a service, but it's not, it's paying dividends for shareholders, and fat bonuses for people whose egos allow them to believe they make a difference. You can't have a profit if your outgoings are greater than your income, and all rail franchises have greater outgoings than their income, so why are we paying extra just to generate profit? The prevailing logic is that, as rail transport is a public service, we should pay a dividend for its loss making, a loss premium if you will. This idea comes from the people who see the amounts of money involved and are aware that if they take a comparatively little amount out it won't make much difference. In many ways they're right as well: the subsidy for Southern Rail is less than £1 a year per head of the population (although probably closer to £2 a year per taxpayer), so we wouldn't exactly miss it if it was just taken from us and paid directly to the least deserving person. However, we might still resent it if we had to hand over £10 a year to a bunch of faceless corporations who make no discernible difference to our lives. Besides this is slightly missing the point, the reasons why we pay these small amounts of money is so that when they are all added together they can make a difference for the good of society, not line the pockets of the bolshy.
Of course the people who profit from our taxes see their remuneration as reward for making the system more efficient, to which my response would be: fine, you can take your efficiency dividend when your company makes a profit. I'm all for free market economics, but if these services can't make money in the free market, then perhaps they should be looked after by the state. If we really want to save money as a nation maybe we should make sure all privatised services are truly private and withdraw any government funding. Those that manage to survive on their own, then well done them. Those that fail can be nationalised, just like the banks. That way we can save money and be sure that we know just which services can be privatised and which need to be run by the state.
Obviously for such a model to function like 'proper' capitalism (i.e. like no market in the world truly functions) we as consumers need to have somewhere else to go for our services, otherwise there is a monopoly - something that is vehemently opposed, indeed banned in the commercial world. Quite clearly certain privatised services simply don't offer any alternative and therefore are monopolies; it can only be argued that rail franchises are not a monopoly because you can theoretically get a bus, walk or drive to your destination instead. If a service fails this other rule of free market capitalism, then it think it also fails as a privatised service.
I think that there are two exceptions to the above tests: health and education. Both services have thriving private sector versions, but not everybody can afford them. Therefore, there needs to be a state provided service for those who cannot afford to pay for these very expensive services, and the only way that can be funded is through the economies of scale generated by all of us paying a little bit. If you don't think you should be paying to ensure the health and education of your countrymen, then I fear for you as a human being.