Feasible Fuzzy Semantics On Some Problems of How to Handle Word Meaning Empirically

“There is no need for us to emphasize either the fact that meaning is the crucial feature of language or the fact that it is the most intractable problem of linguistics. Semantics, the study of meaning, has a long and eminently respectable history as an activity for philosophers, logicians, grammarians, philologists and linguists, but unfortunately the obviousness of meaning of words and discourse is matched by its eel-like slipperyness when the philosopher or linguist tries to catch it.” (Sparck-Jones/Kay 1973, 120)