"Devil" literally means "to throw across." The connotation "to slander" is one inferred meaning in a linguistic sense, but the more obvious physical meaning is to create chaos. Linguists often prefer purely linguistic connotations rather than physical or scientific ones even where, as in the case of "devil", there is no real basis for preferring a linguistic rather than a physical meaning. | "Devil" literally means "to throw across." The connotation "to slander" is one inferred meaning in a linguistic sense, but the more obvious physical meaning is to create chaos. Linguists often prefer purely linguistic connotations rather than physical or scientific ones even where, as in the case of "devil", there is no real basis for preferring a linguistic rather than a physical meaning. |