Language deconstrutionists teach that language has only relative meaning. If you say the word “chair” to me, you may mean your comfortable stuffed armchair and I may picture my much less comfortable desk chair. Likewise, no matter how many words you use to make a point, I may understand those words differently and come up with a different point. Thus, the theory goes, it is impossible to ascertain what words mean, and their “meaninging” in the vulgar, functional sense of the word is determined by their opposition or difference (or differance, for those in the know). That is, if you say “chair,” I am not likely to think of a dog or of the planet Neptune.

What they say about language is correct, but not what they say about meaning. After all, no matter how we misunderstand each other, your chair, my chair, and the planet Neptune all exist. The lifeblood of civilization is communication that is functional as a transactions of meaning. None of our language can exhaustively define what we are speaking of; that would require words which create precisely that which they define (there’s the rub). Short of that, we are borrowing a portion of the possible meaning when we communicate, as the moon reflects light. But the light is still real, even if it is reflected; and so the meaning.

Now, that’s a rather tedious way to introduce this video which you can enjoy without considering any of that. But with that introduction, I pose the question: is the customer being naive in failing to grasp the relative meaning of the word “tall,” or is the “nameless” coffee shop being perverse in its attempt to confuse the meaning of the word “tall”?

I’m siding with the customer.