inct and definable meanings.

Strictly speaking, the ambiguity does not inhere in the word itself, but
rather in its use in an assertion, since ambiguity can arise only when
we are making an assertion. It has been defined as "the neglect of
distinctions in the meaning of terms, when these distinctions are
important for the given occasion."[48] Suppose, for example, you are
arguing against a certain improvement in a college dormitory, on the
ground that it makes for luxury: clearly "luxury" is a word that may
mean one thing to you, and another to half of your audience. By itself
it is an indefinite word, except in its emotional implication; and its
meaning varies with the people concerning whom it is used, since what
would be luxury for a boy brought up on a farm would be bare comfort to
the son of wealthy parents in the city. Indeed the advances of plumbing
in the last generation have completely changed the relative meanings of
the words "comfort" and "luxury" so far as they concern bathrooms and
bathtubs. In the case of such a word, then, the weight of the definition
above falls on the last clause, "when these distinctions are important
for the given occasion"; here is a case where the occasion on which the
word "luxury" is used determines nearly the whole of its meaning. In
practice, if you have a suspicion that a word may be taken in another
sense than that you intend, the first thing to do is to define it--to
lay down as exactly as possible the cases which it is intended to cover
on the present occasion, and the meaning it is to have in those cases.
For good examples of this enlightened caution, see the definitions on
pages 54-65, especially that from Bagchot.

A similar difficulty arises with the words which, in the somewhat
slipshod use of everyday life, have come to have as it were a sliding
value.

We may raise no difficulty about understanding the assertions that
Brown, and Jones, and Robinson are "honest," but when we come to the
case of Smith we discover a difficulty in placing him clearly on either
side of the line. That difficulty is nothing less than the difficulty of
knowing the meaning given to the word in this particular assertion. We
might, for instance, agree to mean by Smith's "honesty" that no shady
transactions could be legally proved against him, or that he is "honest
according to his lights," or again that he is about as honest as the
majority of his neighbors or the average of his trade or pro