I object, and no, I’m not a lawyer, I object when people say, oh, that’s just semantics.

Because semantics matters, and I know semantics matters because I took a class on semantics in college.

And if you can’t trust the things you learned in college, then what can you trust, people?

Anyway, let’s talk about semantics.

In college, my semantics class was taught by the professor with the unfortunate name Ray Jackendoff.

Good guy, he invented X-bar theory, which if you’ve majored in linguistics, as at least one of us has in this conversation, you’re pretty familiar with.

But he invented X-bar theory, Ray Jackendoff, just a terrible name.

So our semantics class, though, was a cool one, and we would really get deep into the meaning of words.

And you’re like, well, how important could that class be?

Did you just open the dictionary?

And no, we did not.

But debates that we had in this class, for example, were at what point is a chair a bench?

A bench can typically hold more than one person, and a chair can hold one person.

But what if it holds one and a half people?

Is that a chair or a bench?

Is it a big chair or a small bench?

What if it holds 1.75 people?

What if it holds 1.9 people?

What if it holds two people?

Well, if it holds two people, it’s a bench, in my opinion.

But so we had those debates, and it was really actually quite interesting.

We also talked about what’s a chair versus what’s a seat.

And in the noun form, it can get complicated, but typically a seat is meant to be bolted down to the floor, like an airplane seat or a movie theater seat.

You wouldn’t say, hey, that’s a nice airplane chair you’ve got there.

That’d be weird, whereas chairs are typically movable.

The one potential exception is the electric chair.

When you think about the canonical electric chair, you would assume that it’s in some way attached to the floor, which would mean that it’s really more of an electric seat.

You can also get into some pretty intense debates about when it’s a chair versus a stool.

You think, well, a stool would have three legs, but stools can also be four-legged stools, so then it doesn’t have a back.

But what if it has a small back?

At what point does the height of the back on a stool turn that stool into a chair?

Sometimes it’s the height of the seat, but you can also just have a high-top chair at some point.

Anyway, I knew I wanted to talk about semantics today, but for the life of me, I don’t remember why, so I’m going to segue to another topic.

Anyway, semantics are good, and don’t just suggest semantics.

If you are interested in this, and it’s totally okay by me if you’re not, I am looking to name my forthcoming album.

I’m expecting I’ll put the album out in March, but I’m very pleased with the songs on it.

I think it’s some of my best musical work, and the more albums Liam and I make together, the better I get at the mixing side of things.

This is just a solo Lex album, although I did get Liam to play some instruments on a couple tracks.

But I want to know what to name the album, and if you like any of these, if any of these names stick out to you, feel free to write to me on whatever platform you prefer.

It could be Mastodon, it could be Threads, it could be Blue Sky, which I hate, but so here are some of the ideas I have, and all of these are references to a couple different songs on the album, quotes from them, really.

Disappear is one title, a sentiment that’s almost true, kaboom, I’m just too late, please tell all of your friends, really real.

So that’s one, two, three, four, five, six, that’s six different options.

Disappear, a sentiment that’s almost true, kaboom, I’m just too late, please tell all of your friends, and really real.

If any of those speak to you, and you’re like, wow, that’s a great album title, feel free to let me know.

Otherwise I’m probably just going to end up picking one, or something totally different.

It’s interesting, when you really think about album titles, which I don’t necessarily recommend that you do, there are folks who typically reference one of the songs on the album.

It could be a lyric from that song, or it could be just the title of that song.

I did that for my first album, it was called The Internet’s Out, I had a song on it called The Internet’s Out.

And then there are people who use a lyric from the album.

Way to Normal was the name of a Ben Folds album, where he has the lyrics, Making My Way Back to Normal, Illinois.

And then there’s plenty of other albums where the title seemingly has nothing to do with the album.

That’s a very common thing.

So I could do that too, but I didn’t.

So anyway, if you like any of those titles, let me know.

Otherwise, I hope you’re having just a wonderful Wednesday, and we’ll talk tomorrow, probably not about a linguistic topic, but you never know.

Lex.