Free Essays on The Zodiac Killer

The late 1960’s and early 1970’s represented a great deal of things to a great deal of people. To the San Francisco Bay area, as well as the rest of California, the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s represented terror, fear, and death. What started out as a seemingly random, but brutal murder on the night of October 30th, 1966, turned out to be the start of a series of horrific murders that would span 2,500 suspects, 56 possible victims, and over 400 miles. On the calm, cool night of December 20th, 1968, a young seventeen year-old named David Arthur Faraday was getting ready to take a young sixteen year-old named Betty Lou Jensen on her first date. David arrived at Betty’s house, picked her up, and promptly proceeded to Lake Herman Road, a well known "lover’s lane" of the local teenagers. After a while, a car, possibly a blue Valiant, pulled up next to David’s 1961 brown and beige four-door station wagon, and a man got out. "Framed only in silhouette, the man appeared to be stocky in build and slightly heavy, with an eerie sense about him" (Tina 3). The man requested that the teens get out of their car, but they refused. Upon hearing David and Betty’s refusal, the man pulled out a gun, and fired a round into the right rear window, shattering it with incredible force. He then moved to the front of the car and fired another round into the left tire. Stricken with panic, David and Betty rushed out of the car, but the man was there to meet them. Betty was able to scramble out, but David wasn’t so lucky, as he was met with the cold, hard barrel of a gun pressing behind his left ear. "The shot made a deafening blast, as the bullet entered David’s head at a horizontal angle, blowing it apart" (Tina 3). With David out of his way, the killer turned his attention back to Betty. "He pursued her through the woods, his gun drawn, and shot her five times in the back from less than ten feet away." (Tina 3). The killer then got... Free Essays on The Zodiac Killer Free Essays on The Zodiac Killer The late 1960’s and early 1970’s represented a great deal of things to a great deal of people. To the San Francisco Bay area, as well as the rest of California, the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s represented terror, fear, and death. What started out as a seemingly random, but brutal murder on the night of October 30th, 1966, turned out to be the start of a series of horrific murders that would span 2,500 suspects, 56 possible victims, and over 400 miles. On the calm, cool night of December 20th, 1968, a young seventeen year-old named David Arthur Faraday was getting ready to take a young sixteen year-old named Betty Lou Jensen on her first date. David arrived at Betty’s house, picked her up, and promptly proceeded to Lake Herman Road, a well known "lover’s lane" of the local teenagers. After a while, a car, possibly a blue Valiant, pulled up next to David’s 1961 brown and beige four-door station wagon, and a man got out. "Framed only in silhouette, the man appeared to be stocky in build and slightly heavy, with an eerie sense about him" (Tina 3). The man requested that the teens get out of their car, but they refused. Upon hearing David and Betty’s refusal, the man pulled out a gun, and fired a round into the right rear window, shattering it with incredible force. He then moved to the front of the car and fired another round into the left tire. Stricken with panic, David and Betty rushed out of the car, but the man was there to meet them. Betty was able to scramble out, but David wasn’t so lucky, as he was met with the cold, hard barrel of a gun pressing behind his left ear. "The shot made a deafening blast, as the bullet entered David’s head at a horizontal angle, blowing it apart" (Tina 3). With David out of his way, the killer turned his attention back to Betty. "He pursued her through the woods, his gun drawn, and shot her five times in the back from less than ten feet away." (Tina 3). The killer then got...

Linguistic Arbitrariness

Linguistic Arbitrariness In linguistics, arbitrariness  is the absence of any natural or necessary connection between a words meaning and its sound or form. An antithesis to  sound symbolism, which does exhibit an apparent connection between sound and sense, arbitrariness is one of the characteristics shared between all languages. As R.L. Trask points out in ​Language: The Basics: the overwhelming presence of arbitrariness in language is the chief reason it takes so long to learn the  Ã¢â‚¬â€¹vocabulary  of a foreign language. This is largely due to confusion over similar-sounding words in a secondary language.​ Trask goes on to use the example of trying to guess the names of creatures in a foreign language based on the sound and form alone, providing a list of Basque words - zaldi, igel, txori, oilo, behi, sagu, which mean horse, frog, bird, hen, cow, and mouse respectively - then observing that arbitrariness is not unique to humans but instead exists within all forms of communication.   Language Is Arbitrary   Therefore, all language can be assumed to be arbitrary, at least in this linguistic definition of the word, despite occasional iconic characteristics. Instead of universal rules and uniformity, then, language relies on associations of word meanings deriving from cultural conventions. To break this concept down further, linguist Edward Finegan wrote in Language: Its Structure and Use  about the difference between nonarbitrary and arbitrary semiotic signs through an observation of a mother and son burning rice. Imagine a parent trying to catch a few minutes of the televised evening news while preparing dinner, he writes. Suddenly a strong aroma of burning rice wafts into the TV room. This nonarbitrary sign  will send the parent scurrying to salvage dinner. The little boy, he posits, might also signal to his mother that the rice is burning by saying something like The rice is burning! However, Finegan argues that while the utterance is likely to elicit the same result of the mother checking on her cooking, the words themselves are arbitrary - it is a set of facts about  English  (not about burning rice) that enables the utterance to alert the parent, which makes the utterance an arbitrary  sign. Different Languages, Different Conventions As a result of languages reliance on cultural conventions, different languages naturally have different conventions, that can and do change - which is part of the reason that there are different languages in the first place! Second language learners must, therefore, learn each new word individually as its generally impossible to guess the meaning of an unfamiliar word - even when given clues to the words meaning.   Even linguistic rules are considered to be slightly arbitrary. However, Timothy Endicott writes in ​The Value of Vagueness that: with all norms of language, there is a good reason to have such norms for the use of words in such ways. That good reason is that it is actually necessary to do so to achieve the coordination that enables communication, self-expression and all the other priceless benefits of having a language.