Being Human
I wonder why we are called 'human beings'. Isn't it sort of obvious that we, as humans, exist and therefore the 'beings' part is self-evident? I was just reading a statute which defined a 'dwelling' as 'any building or structure or portion thereof which is occupied in whole or in part as the home, residence or sleeping place of one or more human beings.' I'm sure there is some legal loophole somewhere about how a human can exist in theory like the proverbial Tom, Dick and Harry, but aside from the legalese, I think we can drop the 'being' from everyday vernacular. I was just thinking about this in my head trying to figure out a way to rationalize needing this seemingly absurd additional word and I thought of a phrase and then a negation of the phrase (I don't know what I was trying to prove in my head...I just follow crap like this.) You can say, for instance, 'Some people exist.' and this sentence makes perfect sense logically. However, if you add a negation to the phrase and say, 'Some people exist, and some do not.' well that doesn't make any sense at all. That's sorta how I feel about adding 'beings' to the 'human'...even though I sorta like the sound of my phrase/negation. :)
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Lastexit29 on
being is just a word for a living thing...i don't understand why we say human being and not "animal being" for animals. good title by the way.
Timbo on
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-03,GGLG:en&q=numb+tongue
Look at the 4th one down. HAH
Cavutto on
Dude, that's awesome! I wonder if this will have any impact on the success of Crest Pro-Health toothpaste. :) Probably not. Seems like some of my blogs wind up in the weirdest places. Was my page getting hits from people googling 'numb tongue'?
Timbo on
Yeah. I have a list of search phrases that people enter the site on. "Numb tongue" has brought 25 people to your blog this month.
You have had 80 people hit your blog with the term "anagram maker".
About 200 people have landed on your blog through that Naplopomo thing you signed up for.
