Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that answer the question.
Query: What does the word Shoah mean?
Names of the Holocaust vary based on context. "The Holocaust" is the name commonly applied in English since the mid-1940s to the systematic extermination of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II. The term is also used more broadly to include the Nazis' systematic murder of millions of people in other groups, including ethnic Poles, the Romani, Soviet civilians, Soviet prisoners of war, people with disabilities, gay men, and political and religious opponents,[1] which would bring the total number of Holocaust victims to between 11 million and 17 million people.[2] In Judaism, Shoah (שואה), meaning "calamity" in Hebrew, became the standard term for the 20th-century Holocaust (see Yom HaShoah). This is because 'Holocaust' connotes a sacrifice, and Jewish leaders argue there was no sacrifice.
The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael taught that there are four types of children (as evinced by the four times — in and — that Scripture reports telling a child) — the wise, the simple, the wicked, and the type who does not know how to ask. The wise child asks, in the words of "What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, that the Lord our God has commanded you?" The Mekhilta taught that we explain to this child all the laws of Passover. The simple child asks, in the words of "What is this?" The Mekhilta taught that we respond simply with the words of "By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage." The wicked child asks, in the words of "What do "you" mean by this service?" The Mekhilta taught that because wicked children exclude themselves, we should also exclude this child in answering and say, in the words of "It is because of what the Lord did for "me" when I came forth out of Egypt" — for me but not for you; had you been there, you would not have been saved. As for the child who does not know how to ask, the Mekhilta taught that we take the initiative, as says (without having reported that the child asked), "You shall tell your child on that day."
Semasiology (from , "", "signification") is a discipline of linguistics concerned with the question "what does the word "X" mean?". It studies the meaning of words regardless how they are pronounced. It is the opposite of onomasiology, a branch of lexicology that starts with a concept or object and asks for its name, i.e., "how do you express X?" whereas semasiology starts with a word and asks for its meanings.
In his paper, "Content Ex Machina" Bach argues against over-interpreting what he labels the "contextualist platitude" which he defines as: “Generally what a speaker means in uttering a sentence, even if the sentence is devoid of ambiguity, vagueness, or indexicality, goes beyond what the sentence means.” Bach asserts that context does not establish meaning but is merely one of several conversational principles. He states that “context does not determine (in the sense of constitute), but merely enables the hearer to determine (in the sense of ascertain) what the speaker means.” Context provides constraints on what a speaker can reasonably mean and on what a hearer can reasonably interpret a speaker to mean. “contextualist platitude” does not preclude the “older picture of language and communication” and “a fairly standard semantic-pragmatic distinction.” Pragmatic considerations and context do not contribute to the content of what is said. Bach admits that there is meaning in utterances beyond the semantic content of a sentence, but he maintains that context does not determine speaker meaning but rather constrains how a speaker can expect to be understood and helps the hearer understand what is said. “We need the level of locutionary act and, correlatively, a strict, semantic notion of what is said in order to account for (the content of) what a speaker does in uttering a sentence independently of whatever communicative intention (if any) he has in uttering it and regardless of how the content of that intention may depart from the semantic content of the sentence.” 
For Saussure, the essential unit of any language is the word, or sign. Like language, he divides the word into two inseparable parts: the signifier, which is the sound image, and the signified, which is the concept associated with the signifier. Saussure stressed the arbitrariness of this association, maintaining that any signifier can refer to any signified. How a sign obtains its meaning is by what it is not within the langue, not what it is. For example, the word ‘dog’ means dog simply because it does not mean cat, bird or cornflakes.
On the other hand, questions asking for information, i.e who, what, when, where, why or how, usually begin with a 'question word/phrase', saying what is being asked for, followed by a partial, or incomplete statement. For example ""Wha he waun?"" means ""What does he want?"" or ""He wants what?"". Some question words, however, don't exist, or are seldom used in Bajan creole, including "when, where and why", and are achieved by making questions beginning with "wha" (what). For example, ""Wha time you see he?"" means ""When did you see him?"", and ""Wha part de Chefette?"" means ""Where is the Chefette?"". In addition, “why” questions can be achieved by asking “how come”. For example, “How come you get hey so late?”.
Wimsatt does allow for a certain degree of variation in the analysis of poetry and does not necessarily contend that there is only one possible reading for any given poem. He allows, for example, for what he calls the “literary sense” of meaning, saying that “no two different words or different phrases ever mean fully the same” (Verbal Icon xii).
One persistent misunderstanding recurs in discussion of semantics - the confusion of words and meanings. The meanings of words change, sometimes rapidly. But a formal language such as used in an ontology can encode the meanings (semantics) of concepts in a form that does not change. In order to determine what is the meaning of a particular word (or term in a database, for example) it is necessary to label each fixed concept representation in an ontology with the word(s) or term(s) that may refer to that concept. When multiple words refer to the same (fixed) concept in language this is called synonymy; when one word is used to refer to more than one concept, that is called ambiguity. Ambiguity and synonymy are among the factors that make computer understanding of language very difficult. The use of words to refer to concepts (the meanings of the words used)is very sensitive to the context and the purpose of any use for many human-readable terms. The use of ontologies in supporting semantic interoperability is to provide a fixed set of concepts whose meanings and relations are stable and can be agreed to by users. The task of determining which terms in which contexts (each database is a different context) is then separated from the task of creating the ontology, and must be taken up by the designer of a database, or the designer of a form for data entry, or the developer of a program for language understanding. When a word used in some interoperability context changes its meaning, then to preserve interoperability it is necessary to change the pointer to the ontology element(s) that specifies the meaning of that word.
Paul Grice and P. F. Strawson criticized "Two Dogmas" in their (1956) article "In Defense of a Dogma". Among other things, they argue that Quine's skepticism about synonyms leads to a skepticism about meaning. If statements can have meanings, then it would make sense to ask "What does it mean?". If it makes sense to ask "What does it mean?", then synonymy can be defined as follows: Two sentences are synonymous if and only if the true answer of the question "What does it mean?" asked of one of them is the true answer to the same question asked of the other. They also draw the conclusion that discussion about correct or incorrect translations would be impossible given Quine's argument. Four years after Grice and Strawson published their paper, Quine's book "Word and Object" was released. In the book Quine presented his theory of indeterminacy of translation.
The textualist will "look at the statutory structure and hear the words as they would sound in the mind of a skilled, objectively reasonable user of words." The textualist thus does not give weight to legislative history materials when attempting to ascertain the meaning of a text. Textualism is often erroneously conflated with originalism, and was advocated by United States Supreme Court Justices such as Hugo Black and Antonin Scalia; the latter staked out his claim in his 1997 Tanner Lecture: "[it] is the law that governs, not the intent of the lawgiver." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., although not a textualist himself, well-captured this philosophy, and its rejection of intentionalism: "We ask, not what this man meant, but what those words would mean in the mouth of a normal speaker of English, using them in the circumstances in which they were used ... We do not inquire what the legislature meant; we ask only what the statutes mean."
The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael taught that there are four types of children (as evinced by the four times — in and — that Scripture reports telling a child) — the wise, the simple, the wicked, and the type who does not know how to ask. The wise child asks, in the words of “What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, that the Lord our God has commanded you?” The Mekhilta taught that we explain to this child all the laws of Passover. The simple child asks, in the words of “What is this?” The Mekhilta taught that we respond simply with the words of “By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage.” The wicked child asks, in the words of “What do "you" mean by this service?” The Mekhilta taught that because wicked children exclude themselves, we should also exclude this child in answering and say, in the words of “It is because of what the Lord did for "me" when I came forth out of Egypt” — for me but not for you; had you been there, you would not have been saved. As for the child who does not know how to ask, the Mekhilta taught that we take the initiative, as says (without having reported that the child asked), “You shall tell your child on that day.”
The Mekhilta of Rabbi Ishmael taught that there are four types of children (as evinced by the four times — in and — that Scripture reports telling a child) — the wise, the simple, the wicked, and the type who does not know how to ask. The wise child asks, in the words of “What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the ordinances, that the Lord our God has commanded you?” The Mekhilta taught that we explain to this child all the laws of Passover. The simple child asks, in the words of “What is this?” The Mekhilta taught that we respond simply with the words of “By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage.” The wicked child asks, in the words of “What do "you" mean by this service?” The Mekhilta taught that because wicked children exclude themselves, we should also exclude this child in answering and say, in the words of “It is because of what the Lord did for "me" when I came forth out of Egypt” — for me but not for you; had you been there, you would not have been saved. As for the child who does not know how to ask, the Mekhilta taught that we take the initiative, as says (without having reported that the child asked), “You shall tell your child on that day.”
In French, the word "trace" has a range of meanings similar to those of its English equivalent, but also suggests meanings related to the English words "track", "path", or "mark". In the preface to her translation of "Of Grammatology", Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak wrote "I stick to 'trace' in my translation, because it 'looks the same' as Derrida's word; the reader must remind himself of at least the track, even the spoor, contained within the French word". Because the meaning of a sign is generated from the difference it has from other signs, especially the other half of its binary pairs, the sign itself contains a trace of what it does not mean, i.e. bringing up the concepts of woman, normality, or speech may simultaneously evoke the concepts of man, abnormality, or writing. Derrida does not positively or strictly define trace, and denies the possibility of such a project. Indeed, words like "différance", "arche-writing", "pharmakos/pharmakon", and especially "specter", carry similar meanings in many other texts by Derrida. His refusal to apply only one name to his concepts is a deliberate strategy to avoid a set of metaphysical assumptions that, he argues, have been central to the history of European thought.
According to critics, Serge King misappropriated and attempted to redefine three Hawaiian language words for his idea of "the three selves": "Ku," "Lono," and "Kane." However, the meanings he gives these words are not the meanings of the words in Hawaiian. King wrote that the seven principles of Huna are:Native speakers, scholars and dictionaries concur that the meanings King gives for these words do not reflect their usage in the Hawaiian language, nor any traditional Hawaiian beliefs. King also calls what he does "shamanism" and cites "West African shamanism" as an influence.
Knowing what an artist meant to mean when making a work of art can be a tremendous aid to understanding that work of art. Artists’ intents can play a significant role for interpreters who want to formulate meanings about artists’ works. It would be intellectually foolish to ignore artists’ words about their works when trying to interpret those works. Barrets book does not assert, however, that the work necessarily means what the artist wants it to mean. To believe that a work of art means what its maker meant it to mean is to adhere to what is known in criticism and aesthetics as an Intentionalist position of interpretation. There are many objections to intentionalism such as the “Intentionalist Fallacy” – it is very difficult, if not impossible to know what the artist's intentions were. One should remember that it is artworks we attempt to interpret, not artists. One should also remember that intention indicates ambition and not necessarily achievement.
Nachiketa, the boy and a central character in the Katha Upanishad legend, similarly, has closely related words with roots and meanings relevant to the text. Paul Deussen suggests "Na kṣiti" and "Na aksiyete", which are word plays of and pronounced similar to Nachiketa, means "non-decay, or what does not decay", a meaning that is relevant to second boon portion of the Nachiketa story. Similarly, "Na jiti" is another word play and means "that which cannot be vanquished", which is contextually relevant to the Nachiketa's third boon. Both Whitney and Deussen independently suggest yet another variation to Nachiketa, with etymological roots that is relevant to Katha Upanishad: the word "Na-ciketa" also means "I do not know, or he does not know". Some of these Sanskrit word plays are incorporated within the Upanishad's text.
"Jabberwocky" has been translated into numerous languages, as the novel has been translated into 65 languages. The translation might be difficult because the poem holds to English syntax and many of the principal words of the poem are invented. Translators have generally dealt with them by creating equivalent words of their own. Often these are similar in spelling or sound to Carroll's while respecting the morphology of the language they are being translated into. In Frank L. Warrin's French translation, "'Twas brillig" becomes "Il brilgue". In instances like this, both the original and the invented words echo actual words of Carroll's lexicon, but not necessarily ones with similar meanings. Translators have invented words which draw on root words with meanings similar to the English roots used by Carroll. Douglas Hofstadter noted in his essay "Translations of Jabberwocky", the word 'slithy', for example, echoes the English 'slimy', 'slither', 'slippery', 'lithe' and 'sly'. A French translation that uses 'lubricilleux' for 'slithy', evokes French words like 'lubrifier' (to lubricate) to give an impression of a meaning similar to that of Carroll's word. In his exploration of the translation challenge, Hofstadter asks "what if a word does exist, but it is very intellectual-sounding and Latinate ('lubricilleux'), rather than earthy and Anglo-Saxon ('slithy')? Perhaps 'huilasse' would be better than 'lubricilleux'? Or does the Latin origin of the word 'lubricilleux' not make itself felt to a speaker of French in the way that it would if it were an English word ('lubricilious', perhaps)? ".
Shoah had earlier been used in the context of the Nazis as a translation of "catastrophe". For example, in 1934, when Chaim Weizmann told the Zionist Action Committee that Hitler's rise to power was an "unvorhergesehene Katastrophe, etwa ein neuer Weltkrieg" ("an unforeseen catastrophe, comparable to another world war"), the Hebrew press translated Katastrophe as Shoah.[35] In the spring of 1942, the Jerusalem historian BenZion Dinur (Dinaburg) used Shoah in a book published by the United Aid Committee for the Jews in Poland to describe the extermination of Europe's Jews, calling it a "catastrophe" that symbolized the unique situation of the Jewish people.[36][37] The word Shoah was chosen in Israel to describe the Holocaust, the term institutionalized by the Knesset on April 12, 1951, when it established Yom Ha-Shoah Ve Mered Ha-Getaot, the national day of remembrance. In the 1950s, Yad Vashem, the Israel "Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority" was routinely translating this into English as "the Disaster". At that time, holocaust was often used to mean the conflagration of much of humanity in a nuclear war.[38] Since then, Yad Vashem has changed its practice; the word "Holocaust", usually now capitalized, has come to refer principally to the genocide of the European Jews.[35][39] The Israeli historian Saul Friedländer wrote in 1987 of "the growing centrality of the Shoah for Jewish communities in the Diaspora" and that "The Shoah is almost becoming a symbol of identification, for better or for worse, whether because of the weakening of the bond of religion or because of the lesser salience of Zionism and Israel as an identification element".[20] The British historian Richard J. Evans wrote in 1989 that the term Holocaust was unsuitable, and should not be used.[20]
The biblical word Shoah (שואה), also spelled Shoa and Sho'ah, meaning "calamity" in Hebrew (and also used to refer to "destruction" since the Middle Ages), became the standard Hebrew term for the 20th-century Holocaust as early as the early 1940s. In recent literature it is specifically prefixed with Ha ("The" in Hebrew) when referring to Nazi mass-murders, for the same reason that "holocaust" becomes "The Holocaust". It may be spelled Ha-Shoah or HaShoah, as in Yom HaShoah, the annual Jewish "Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day".
Though naturally left-handed, Gallagher plays guitar right-handed, which he claims is the only thing he can do with his non-dominant hand. Gallagher has said he sometimes does not understand his own lyrics, commenting in 2005 that "when I'm halfway through "Don't Look Back in Anger" I say to myself 'I still don't know what these words mean!'". By 2017, Gallagher reflected "There is a bit of truth in that statement. Like the bit in "Champagne Supernova" about slowly walking down the hall faster than a cannonball. What does that mean? And the answer is, I don't know what it means. I don't care what it means. It must mean something, though, because I play it to a sea of people every night and they seem to understand it. That's all that matters, I guess." Gallagher has stated he is dyslexic, which slows down the process of his songwriting, and that he can neither read nor write music.
Following a car accident, in which he believes he killed a boy, Arthur Seligman (José Garcia) falls into a coma for several hours. While in the coma, he pronounces incoherent sentences. At his awakening, he does not remember what happened before the crash, and he does not know the meaning of the words he pronounced while unconscious. The nurse who assisted him, Isabelle Kruger (Marion Cotillard), recorded them in a notebook, which she gives to him. Arthur then tries to understand what happened, what those sentences mean, and begins to lose his grasp of reality.
In the everyday use of language, words are the vehicles of ideas. The word 'flower' means flower that refers to flowers in the world. No doubt it is possible to read literature in this way, but literature is more than this everyday use of language. For in literature 'flower' does not just mean flower but many things, and it can only do so because the word is independent from what it signifies. This independence, which is passed over in the everyday use of language, is the negativity at the heart of language. The word means something because it negates the physical reality of the thing. Only in this way can the idea arise. The absence of the thing is made good by the presence of the idea. What the everyday use of language steps over to make use of the idea, and what literature remains fascinated by, is the absence of the physical materiality of thing, annihilated from its existence. Literary language, therefore, is a double negation, both of the thing and the idea. It is in this space that literature becomes possible where words take on a strange and mysterious reality of their own, and where also meaning and reference remain allusive and ambiguous.
Various readings of what the situation in "Words and Music" might represent have emerged from critical studies of the work:Ultimately most critics agree that Words and Music is a "composition about composition". Of course, a theme running through all of Beckett's writing has been the impossibility of meaningful expression through words alone and, in that respect, Joe doesn’t disappoint. Croak wants to feel. He wants to wallow in a moment, exactly as Krapp does. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t need to understand. What is there to understand? Viewed purely as a means of communication, people revert to lovemaking to express their feelings, to ‘say’ what words can’t say.
"P.S.K. What Does It Mean?" (also written as "P.S.K. (What Does It Mean?)") is a song released in 1985 by Philadelphia rapper Schoolly D on his independent label Schoolly D Records. P.S.K. is the abbreviation for Park Side Killas, a street gang with which Schoolly D was affiliated. The highly influential song is considered the first hardcore rap song and features incidents of graphic sex, gunplay, drug references and one of the first uses of the word "nigga" in a rap song (earlier uses include "Scoopy Rap" and "Family Rap" in 1979, and "New York New York" in 1983).
In Chinese, the concept of words and the boundaries between them is not always transparent, and the Chinese script does not use spaces between words. Grammatically, some strings of characters behave as single words in some contexts, but are separable in others. Many English intransitive verbs are translated by verb+noun compounds, such as ( literally "to jump a dance", meaning "to dance",); such items may be regarded as single lexical words, although the two parts can become separated by (for example) aspect markers, and in fact they generally behave grammatically as a verb plus an object. Sometimes the behavior of such compounds is anomalous, however; for instance (, "to be concerned about") behaves as an inseparable word when the perfective particle "le" is attached, although it is separable in the phrase (, literally "concern what about", meaning "to be concerned about what").