Monday, January 25, 2010

Journal Topic


Hello friends,
I hope you are enjoying your holiday. Have a good rest and please do the assignments until you come back to school.
Here you go. The first one.
Write your comments about the following question. There is no correct answer as you might guess. Just write what you think.
Why do we call a pencil "pencil"?

24 comments:

  1. deltreadingwriting.blogspot.comJanuary 26, 2010 at 12:01 PM

    Originally,I have asked this question myself many times,but unfortunately I haven't found an answer yet.I think that all people comment on this subject in a different way.It doesn't have a certain answer because of not having a certain knowledge about this subjcet.The names of the things change from person to person who invented these things,so I think that the surname of the person who invented pencil is "pencil",so we call it as a pencil.It is only possibility,of course.This name changes from culture to culture.It is named according to language which is used.It isn't same in every language,but why?I can't explain.This is the most difficult question that I have met so far :))

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  2. hocammmm adımı yazmayı unuttum su benim originally olarak baslayan :)) esraaaaa

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  3. Ok Esracım :) Thank you for your comment.

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  4. actually ı dont know the answer of thıs question. but maybe it is essential in some ways because you call it like you call yourself.its having different names in different cultures may stem from the root of these cultures or difference in language.
    veysel öz

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  5. hocam elt journal sorularını ne zaman yayınlayacaksınız.

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  6. Coming soon Veysel :)

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  7. İn my opinion,there is no definite explanation of this guestion.We can not know exactly why we call a pencil "pencil"or why don't we call a pencil "book,car..."İf we called it with these names,we would again ask why they have these names.l mean we can only make some guess like (maybe) ancient people gave this name according to their culture.Other possible reasons are communication necessities or the harmony between shape and name so as you see l couln't reach any appropriate answer:)it is a vast philosophical issue and it exceed me:)

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  8. I think there is a connenction between item and the person who gives it the name.You cant question why the person gives that name,because it is an idea.of course there can be some reasons,for instance the aim of usage..We mentioned about the pencil,it comes from sanscritic kalema,at that time people used that plant to write.In German it called leder,because people at ancient times used feader as a tool in order to write,ın France they call plume because it means feather,and they also used it for writing,ın China people say it piti,it means nail in English,they used nail to write so they say piti..As it is clearly seen in examples,people generaly gives names according to the aim of usage.Actually,we dont have concrete proof about this but ı know something very well,if we said instead of pencil chair,and to chair said pencil,now we are also questioning why we call chair,not anything else??
    This is an evidence that, since birth to death,people in a mood of questioning:how and why...?

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  9. I think,this issue is debatable,because it has not got a definite answer.Perhaps,culturel differences and lunguage may be two main reasons in order to call objects.Each country or society has given different names to them.This situation may be related to conditions of their lives and their habits.For other reason,during history, some people have invented a lot of things and called them with their names.For example,Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen has invented machine of röntgen and he has called it only with his name.In short,there may be different reasons ,but it has not got exactly an answer for this subject.

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  10. I think for this issue,there isn't a definite correct.We can't know the answer.It is a very controversial.It may be the inventer of surname or name.For example,^^Pencil^^invented a thing and he named it his name.This is possible.I only made guess.It changes culture to culture.They gave this name according to their culture,lives and their habits.

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  11. I also don'T know what the answer is but I suppose that people who invented or used it called it as pencil's function.Maybe they thought as their culture or live.At the same time it came from person who invented it.I think that it's mystery and we cannot learn the true we just can put forward an idea.

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  12. Actually i don't have any certain idea why we call the items like that way.While we're growing up,everyday we hear new words but we don't look for why we call them like kitap,kalem,ev,araba etc...We all have been taught them in this way so we continue to call them how they've been taught us...

    Özge Vidin

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  13. I think,we call it 'a pencil' not because we have the full knowledge about it, it's only because we are taught to call it ' a pencil'


    Kübra Taşkın

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  14. I think we don't have definite information about the items how named?
    sometimes person's name is given.sometimes culture or custom effects the name.I thınk,the pencil is one of them.


    gamze..

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  15. ı had been curıous about this question many times before.ı ve learned that from a friend of mine 'language is arbitrary.'then ı ve researched what it means.ı know that languages are arbitrary because there is no necessary or natural relationship between the words of a given languge and the consepts that they represent.moreover,the ruler for the combination of signs in order to produce complete thoughts are different from one language to the other,and set of rules cant claim to be the right one.ı picked up this knowlege from a web site called answers.com

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  16. Actually,l don't know what the answer is this question.our ancestor said 'pencil' and we also say 'pencil' without searching.
    Gonca İNAL

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  17. actually i've been thinking about its causes since i was in early teens however i couldn't find. i think it's has no logical explanation.Ancient civilizations has used some sounds so as to express their requirements then they used them as usual.those sounds converted into words in my opinion

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  18. ı want to add smt more..what is "kalem"? first of all we should think that what it is and we use it as what..it helps to write,to draw smt...all right,,why do we say it "kalem"?why not kitap defter??Actually ı also agree with my all friends ı dont know exactly this question..but maybe once,,people must have thought this name was related to write.."kalem" when we consider it now,we can not find anything because kalem is not related to write when even spelling "ka-lem"..but maybe that times,it must have had same meanings..so ı think every word which we use now is in respect of usage..

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  19. The "kalem" word comes from Arabic and our ancestors took it without changing. I thought that,if we divided it into two parts "kal-em" 'kal' means stay and 'em' means sign. I mean, if we write sht,the signs(the words), stay. Maybe, they may've thought like this way by giving the name. And also, the English word "pencil" got it's name from a Latin word "pencillus". I mean, some cultural interactions may've caused this word change and the nations took it by adapting to their languages.

    Sema KARAGÖZ

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  20. words differ culture to culture.i think ıts basic cause is being under the other communities effect.for instance, we spell pencil as kalem. kalem is an arabic based word and it is available in Quran.as they are muslims ,sjkus and attoman empires were influenced by Arabs and their culture very much so arabic words transferred into our language.we can see many other words like this.in short, being under the effect of other cultures is basic cause in forming words in other languages...
    CENGİZ TOLGA...

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  21. the answer of why do we call a pencil 'pencil'and why does it have different names in different cultures is philosophical.if we called a pencil 'book' or 'table',then we would asked why did we call a pencil 'book' or 'table'.thus l want to explain this subject scientifically.as we all know,first people started to make contact with wall paintings.at the same time,people started to imitate the sounds they heard from nature and made themselves unawares.due to lack of wall paintings,they tried to entitle monosyllabic and simple names to every material.however,at that period,people entitled different names to every material,because they lived in far field each other.by the time of progress,due to lack of those monosyllabic and simple names,they was getting use more complex names.
    SELİN AL

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  22. People named the objects according to their connotation.Because ı believe that there is association between connotation and names of the objects.When the people did not know any language,they used facial expressions and they took out some noises from their mouths,but gradually they named these objects.

    ABDULLAH...

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  23. Thank you guys!! These are all possible explanations of my question. Of course we are not sure which one is really the correct one. You have made good guesses about it. My purpose in asking this question was only to provoke questioning. Thank you all. :))

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  24. As ı know the pencil name is coming from Latin and French.In Latin, meanings of pencil "pencillous". After Latin had used this form of pencil's name, French used another form which ı do not remembered exactly now. Briefly, first Latin, after French and last English. :)

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