Indexicals

Domestic Iranian destinations in London

Mar 23rd 2011, 16:41 by R.L.G. | LONDON

I'M visiting London this week, and just passed the Iran Air office on Piccadilly, where a sign advertised flights to "Tehran and domestic destinations". This gave me a quick double-take: could you fly to Tehran and, say, Leeds?  Of course they meant "other destinations within Iran", but why not say "other Iranian destinations", then?

Probably because the sign was written by Iranians, for whom Isfahan is a domestic destination, at least mentally. I think this is a case of a slip in "indexical" reference. Indexicals, as I learned from my old boss and a scholar of philosophy, Anthony Gottlieb, are words that depend on the speaker's frame of reference. "Yesterday" is always an indexical, because its meaning differs based on what day it is today (another indexical). Indexicals include pronouns, too—I am a different "I" than you are. Children have trouble with indexicals (try explaining "yesterday" to a toddler). This is why Elmo, the fuzzy red Sesame Street fellow with the high-pitched voice, doesn't use pronouns: "Elmo wants to have a party with Elmo's friends!", he might say. He, like the Iran Air people, has problems with indexicals.

Indexicals - lexical items whose semantic denotations differ according to the context. Eg. "I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow will never come." --> Semantics of 'tomorrow' is dependant on what 'today' is.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2011/03/indexicals