A “Frisco,” I just lately realized, is “one thing that outsiders spontaneously say that secretly marks them as outsiders unbeknownst to them.”
[from a “The Far Side” comic by Gary Larson]
The idea, which got here to my consideration by way of Hanno Sauer (Utrecht), is expounded to the idea of a shibboleth, a linguistic time period distinctive to a selected group, however type of its opposite. Coined by Dan Engber, its identify comes from the supposed proven fact that “folks from all around the nation suppose it’s cool to name San Francisco ‘Frisco,’ however no real native San Franciscans would ever use the phrase to explain their metropolis.”
A number of years in the past we had a dialogue of what we known as “shibboleth names” in philosophy, that’s, names the frequent mispronunciation of which marks audio system as inferior ultimately. Perhaps we must always have known as them “Frisco names.”
In any occasion, the area of philosophical friscos—let’s simply go all in and name them phriscos—goes past names and mispronunciations.
A traditional instance of a phrisco, provided by Scott Hill (Innsbruck) in response to Sauer, is utilizing “begs the query” amongst philosophers to imply “raises the query” slightly than “assumes the very factor it units out to show.” (Sure I do know a few of you suppose we must always quit on this one, however nonetheless it nonetheless capabilities as phrisco.)
Right here’s one other phrisco: utilizing “refuted” when one means “disagreed with”.
I feel we might have somewhat enjoyable, and on the identical time present a invaluable service to philosophical novices, by figuring out these phriscos.
