You Say “Tomato”

Abstract

This chapter highlights the Variation Effect, which is a very important yet poorly understand human phenomenon. Variety occurs not only at the level of regions and populations. It is a mark either of stupidity or arrogance to be unable or unwilling to accommodate one's manner of speech to the circumstances in which one finds oneself. As variation plays a central role in biological evolution, it also plays a fascinating role in the evolution of languages. To perceive or cognize the world at all is to be sensitive to the way patterns of variation allow for invariance to show up for us. We achieve access to what is invariant not because we are blind to variation but because we are so fluent in our mastery of variation that we can let it recede for us and rest in the background. In these ways, we come to appreciate that perception is at bottom an aesthetic achievement.