why isn't "palindrome" an actual palindrome?

[pres2032]

[slackmaster]

1. You mean like palindromordnilap?

I've always wondered about that too.

Onomatopoeia isn't onomatopoetic, either.

[pres2032]

2. and why is abbreviation so long?

[rock]

3. You can abbreviate it to abbrev. or maybe abbr.

Why isn't acronym an acronym?

[nuxvomica]

4. Because it's a heterolog

Heterologs are words that don't describe themselves such as "long" and "monosyllabic". Autologs are words that do, such as "short" and "polysyllabic." The word "autolog" is also an autolog. But is "heterolog" a heterolog or an autolog?

[Misunderestimator]

5. My...... head..... just......

:nuke:

[nuxvomica]

6. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha

:evilgrin:

[eyepaddle]

7. Oh now THAT

is just too cool! There is no way I won't be able to bust that out at some point in the near future.

I'd say heterolog is an autolog--we're through the looking glass here, people.

[nuxvomica]

8. Prove it!

Show your work. :evilgrin:

[eyepaddle]

9. I'm a situational wit;

or "Wag" if you will. I'll just have to keep my eyes open for this topic to arise. And trust me, somewhere it will.

However as for heterolog being either an autolog, or a heterolog....well, I need to mull that over a bit more.

[nuxvomica]

10. Actually, there's a serious point behind this

All formal systems of knowledge are flawed by such paradoxes, therefore they are imperfect. It's easy to see this in language but apparently it's true in math and physics and any other artificial description of reality, though I don't know enough about math and physics to demonstrate the paradoxes. That raises the issue of how much or how little trust one should put in these systems, which should give you a lot to mull over. ;-)

[eyepaddle]

11. Here's just a little starting point,

Mathematics is the language of science--which itself is humanity's attempt to sytematially describe the univers in which we live. Look up the defintion of "7." Now, go and look up the definition of "6" and "8." Linguistically you'd say that you can never define something by using it as its own reference point. But there you have it!

If you really want to crush your skull try reading "Mathematica Principia" it takes more than fifty pages to get to "1+1=2."

Or any philosophy of science class. When you get right down to it 100 percent certainty is unattainable, so you have to make assumptions, such as reality IS real and go from there.

[Hand]

12. Insh'Allah... nt