Art of Eloquence Blog — semantics RSS



It's National Meaning of "is" Day!

On this day in 1998, former President Clinton dabbled in semantics during the Grand Jury hearings to clarify his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He said, "It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."  Well, someone made this day one of those national silly holidays.  What we are supposed to do on this day, I don't know, but it got me thinking about how difficult it is to describe certain words.  How do we define the word is? Think about it? You can't even define the word without using the word itself.  Is is a state of being.  It is a form of the verb to be.  According to Merriam Webster, is is defined as, "present 3d singular of be,...

Continue reading →