(Remark: Our use of expressions like “names of
numbers”, “names of colours”, “names
of materials”, “names of nations” may
spring from two different sources.
a) One is that we might imagine the functions of proper names,
numerals, words for colours,
9.
etc. to be much
more alike than they actually are.
If we do so we are tempted to think that the function of every word
is more or less like the function of a proper name of a person, or
such generic names as “table”, “chair”,
“door”, etc.
The
b) second source is this, that if we see how
fundamentally different the functions of such words as
“table”, “chair”, etc.
are from those of proper names, and how different from either the
functions of, say, the names of colours, we see no reason why we
shouldn't speak of names of numbers or names of directions
either, not by way of saying some such thing as “numbers and
directions are just different forms of objects”, but rather by
way of stressing the analogy which lies in the lack of analogy
between the functions of the words “chair” &
“Jack” on the one hand, &
“east” and “Jack” on the
other hand.)
7). B has a table in which
written signs are placed opposite to pictures of objects (say, a
table, a chair, a tea-cup, etc.).
A writes one of the signs, B looks for it in the table, looks
or points with his finger from the written sign to the picture
opposite, & fetches the object which the picture represents.