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Mon, 19 Apr 2004

Inflected languages

Apparently, there's a particular type of Mad Doctor treatment called "cognitive therapy". I have no idea whether it's a real treatment or whether it's quackish charlatanery like homeopathy. But that's not what this rant is about. My rant is about the name of the treatment itself, which is singularly unhelpful.

In English, "cognitive therapy" could mean either treatment of cognition, or it could mean treatment *by* cognition - that is, treatment to change the way one thinks, or treatment by thinking about whatever is being treated.

In a more civilised language, like Latin, we wouldn't have this confusion.

Posted at 4:35 by David Cantrell
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