“In order for a statement to be complete and comprehensible, three conditions are required:
1.) It must designate its object precisely.
2.) Its speaker must stand by it: must believe it, be accountable for it, be willing to act on it.
3.) This relation of speaker, word, and object must be conventional; the community must know what it is.
These are still the assumptions of private conversations…We assume, in short, that language is communal, and that its purpose is to tell the truth.”
–Wendell Berry, “Standing By Words”<>
