obsertaries t1_iuiiirf wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:18 PM

Reply to comment by Xywzel in TIL - Contrary of what everybody thinks, if you park your car at a dark spot at night, the chances of theft are smaller, because thieves don't like to use lights. by JosZo

Yeah sci-fi has conditioned us to associate “temporal” with time travel.

Xywzel t1_iuilecs wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:37 PM

I still understand "temporal" as "related to time", but "temporal displacement" gets to that scifi range.

obsertaries t1_iuilszj wrote on October 31, 2022 at 4:40 PM

In linguistics I’ve heard that expression used a few times. All kinds of other living things have ways to communicate with each other, but human language is one of the very few that can communicate about temporal or spacial displacement, i.e. you can talk about things that the listener can’t see in exactly that place and time, like what you had for breakfast this morning or what the weather is like in Alaska right now.

It was originally believe they only human language can do this, but now it seems that bee dances have that function as well.