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How can language undermine or support my efforts for clarity?
From: Augustine, de dialectica, here translated by J. Marchand
Let us now look at the types of ambiguity: There are firstly two of them, one of which causes doubt concerning that which is spoken, the other in that which is written. For if anyone hears 'acies' (point, dot), and if anyone reads it, he may be uncertain, unless it is cleared up by a sentence, as to whether it is the point of the army, or of iron, or the pupil of the eye which is written or spoken of. If someone finds the writing of just the word 'leporem', and there is no sentence in which it is placed, he is immediately cast into doubt as to whether the penultimate syllable of this word is pronounced long because it comes from 'lepos' (charm) or short because it is from 'lepus' (hare), an ambiguity which certainly is not felt when the accusative case of this noun is perceived from the spoken voice. But if someone speaks poorly, it is not by ambiguity but by obscurity that the listener is hindered, obscurity of the type which is similar to ambiguity because words pronounced badly in Latin do not lead the mind into diverse notions, but impel it toward whatever it seems to be.
Therefore, there are many distinctions between these two types. The first of these is again divided into two. If something is said and several things can be understood, these several things must be comprised not only in one word but one and the same definition, or they will have the same vocable in common, but be explained in various definitions. Those which one definition can contain are called univocal (= polylexic, Tr.). Those which, though under one designation, must have different definitions are called equivocal (polysemic, Tr.).
Let us first consider the univocal, and, since they are clear from the definition, let them be illustrated by examples. When we say 'man', we say boy as well as youth, as well as old man, stupid or wise, big or little, citizen or pilgrim, city-dweller or farmer, he was as well as he who is, sitting as well as standing, rich as well as poor, beginning something or ending it, being happy as well as mourning, or neither. But in all these 'dictiones' there is nothing which receives the name of man which is not included in the definition of man. The definition of 'man' is rational mortal animal. Now who can say that a youth, not at the same time a boy and an old man, not both wise and stupid, is not a rational mortal animal?
Cf. Rilke, Letter to a Young Poet | Plato, Whom are we talking to? | Kierkegaard, My work as an author | Emerson, Self-knowledge | Gibson - McRury, Discovering one's face | Emerson, We differ in art, not in wisdom | Joyce, Portrait of the Artist
