Describe what a "thing" is without using nouns.

Viani · 2013-03-04 00:58:16

Go!

Imipolex G · 2013-03-04 01:02:50

an existing

Imipolex G · 2013-03-04 01:03:32

or perhaps just a conceiving, a thinking

Obā-san · 2013-03-04 01:06:00

worthless

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-03-04 01:19:01

Exists, physically or abstractly. Identifiable.

Vriska · 2013-03-04 08:42:53

What I always descri8e as red or 8lue or green or negative 8urgundy.

Tre · 2013-03-04 10:41:12

Conceptual or existing in some form.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-03-04 11:08:47

It is of multiple possible states. It may be round, square, visible, invisible, tasty, poisonous, among a multitude of others.

Imipolex G · 2013-03-04 12:04:09

This makes me think of "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-03-04 13:30:54

Borges :)

Tachyon · 2013-03-04 14:51:06

Broadly, that which is; more narrowly, that which is not both alive and animate.

Section42L · 2013-03-04 15:28:30

I am this great unstable mass of blood and foam, and no emotion that’s worth having would call my heart its home. My heart’s an autoclave.

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-05 10:57:59

^^ I was going to say something like that, but your version is less cryptic, although I would quibble with that second part—a living thing is a thing after all, is it not?

^ Great song.

Obā-san · 2013-03-05 11:00:08

i dunno what song that is but if those are lyrics they are great

autoclave is a good word

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-05 11:10:29

Obā-san · 2013-03-05 11:12:45

Mountain Goats?

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-05 11:19:37

^ You have brought evil into this house! You are shunned!

Tachyon · 2013-03-05 11:36:23

Sredni Vashtar said:
^^ I was going to say something like that, but your version is less cryptic, although I would quibble with that second part—a living thing is a thing after all, is it not?

Hence two definitions. :)

The narrow sense also excludes uses such as 'you poor thing' and 'he's a funny old thing', but is necessary if you want to specify a device, concept or inanimate object as opposed to a person or animal!

A third definition could be (without nouns) 'That which is inhuman', for those particular uses where the word 'thing' is itself ominous...

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-05 11:40:46

^ "That which is; more narrowly, that which is not human; occasionally, that which evokes emotionally, somehow."

Note that I use "human" as a quality rather than a being.

Tachyon · 2013-03-05 11:44:12

i guess that works.

But i think a person can be emotionally evocative, whereas 'thing' becomes bad news when it specifically implies that which is not a person.

#overthinking this

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-05 11:58:49

It's more about a failure of identification than negativity per se. An appliance may be a thing, as might a mysterious animal, a piece of art, a random discarded object, whatever. Negativity only enters with inflection, but even that's factored in with "evokes emotionally," which also encompasses humans and identifiable things like in the expression "you poor thing!" or, alternately, "you sexy thing!"

Tachyon · 2013-03-05 12:06:01

Oh yes, i see what you mean.

'Thing' often just means you don't know what else to call it, but not in the case of 'you sexy thing' and similar.

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-05 12:13:21

Exactly. That's why I emphasised that the second definition was the "more narrow" one, but left the broader "sometimes" for the third.

Section42L · 2013-03-05 13:51:47

As long as we're linking Mountain Goats songs ...

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-05 17:29:06

^ Weird. Despite my somewhat diffuse education with respect to this band, you have managed to single out two songs of theirs that I have not only heard, but love, in the same thread.

You work in mysterious ways, Section.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-03-05 18:28:58

I only know Mountain Goats from John Darnielle's verse on "Coffee"

LeighSabio · 2013-03-11 03:15:19

What attributes are in.

...does that work?

Salix Babylonika · 2013-03-11 03:26:30

attribute is a noun.

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-03-11 04:44:59

^^ "What is attributed that which qualifies" might work.

Salix Babylonika · 2013-03-11 04:54:07

"that" is a noun there as well.

(there's an implied "to" between "attributed" and "that")

Princess Alice · 2013-03-11 05:01:27

Haha, "that" is a pronoun!

Granted, a pronoun, by definition, functions as a noun, so it might not be entirely within the spirit of the game.

Tachyon · 2013-03-11 06:48:50

If we're going to be picky, most of these contain nouns, and those that don't contain pronouns.

With two exceptions, Naney's and Ray's.

Fossilmaiden · 2013-03-11 07:51:35

Hey, nobody said anything about pronouns.

glennmagusharvey · 2013-03-11 17:05:42

Conceptually describable.

Tanya · 2013-03-11 17:25:55

Viani · 2013-03-11 21:47:19

:)

Describe what a "thing" is without using nouns.

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