Why is this use of the word "meaning" not quite right?

Today one of my students gave me some writing as part of her preparation for a Cambridge Proficiency exam.

She was describing how after she'd moved away to go to university she'd temporarily lost touch with a friend, Maria, whom she'd gone to school with, and had lived in the same town as, for many years. Her friend had had a very bad time after a relationship break-up in the intervening period.

She explained how her friend eventually told her that she had felt:

"we were too distant (and not only in the geographical meaning) ..."

Now it's clear that the word sense would have been better for this student's needs here (please bear in mind the very, very high level of this exam). Exactly why is sense better than meaning here?

Solution 1:

Throwing caution to the wind, and speaking to a British exam question in an American voice, I'll suggest that perhaps sense, which I agree would have been a more felicitous choice, invites the reader to a connotative understanding, whereas meaning calls up a more objective decoding of the word.

Sense, after all denotes perception in a variety of modes: eye, ear, nose, tongue and touch, privatim et seriatim - as well as in concatenation. Sense implies the right-brain, intuitive process - just as the 18th/19th C notion of 'sensibility' implied a balanced blend of sentiment and reason. Where others may look to,lexicography, I turn to Pope: sense is aligned with art.

Meaning, on the other hand, seems to me to spring from the left-brain realm of objectivity. Pope has no place in a quest for meaning, which is to be found in the company of Murray, Webster et. als.

As you say, it's the sort of fine distiction that discriminates among responses at the highest level. As a reader of high-stakes, high-level exam papers, I admire the distinction made in this case.

Solution 2:

Sense is better because it is not meaning that is meant here, as blunt as this sounds.

I would not object to "... (and not only by its geographical meaning)", I would regard it as a deliberate style decision, as sort of contrast to more common "... (and not only in the geographical sense)". Observe the change "the" to "its". "Its" is focusing on distant more accurately and is far less cold than the. It is giving a personal edge.

Meaning is for the most part of its usage technical, while in this segment the student is talking about emotional surroundings. That is one side of the story.

Another side is the fact that we are talking about ambiguity. We want to express that this usage does not have (only) its literal meaning. Since the ambiguity is a target, sense contains sufficient associative material to express it.

Third is that meaning does not go well with the preposition in. More common is with or by. However, once you try with, it does not fit the remaining structure of the sentence well.

Fourth is that meaning goes structurally well with have as a direct object. Typically, a word has this meaning. Typically, a word does not have this sense, it can be taken or understood in this or that sense. In the sentence, it is suggested that a word should not be understood by its literal meaning, in its literal sense.

Fifth is similar to what we have said already, there is "not only", so the author wants to combine two or more meanings. In order to do that you need the associative field of emotion, taste and from there sense.

Sixth, another word is calling for sense, it is distant. Distant has a similar overlap with its mathematical part as sense has with meaning. Once you employ sense, distant is immediately getting into its non-mathematical association field, you simply read it that way.

Seventh, the author is already using quite a technical term "geographical". Together with meaning it all becomes quite dissonant for the emotional intentions. It is not that dissonance is bad, it is that the structure becomes unbalanced, it sounds like an error.

Eighth, the author is using the, the geographical meaning, which is making this part cold as a stone.

From all the above, I would not say that sense is better, I would say that it is incorrect not to use it.

All in all, I would consider this usage above the suggested optional. Although a lot of people are going to object the segment for different reasons, feelings or simple expectations, I think that most of them will find at least one of the listed reasons plausible.

Solution 3:

Stripping away inessentials, and reversing the claim (use 'non-geographical' or 'metaphorical' if this is a concern):

We were too distant (in the geographical meaning).

is infelicitous and unidiomatic. 'Meaning' refers almost inescapably to the word 'distant' here, and 'with' rather than 'in' is required.

We were too distant (in the geographical sense).

is logically acceptable and idiomatic. It might be analysed as the parenthetical modifying the whole main clause (... in the sense that ... is idiomatic), or as a deletion of 'We were too distant (using the word in the geographical sense).'

I agree with FumbleFingers that the base issue is the collocation accepted as idiomatic: 'in the X sense', not 'in the X meaning' (and never 'in the X polyseme').

Solution 4:

I think most of the answers here (which I have upvoted) cover it. Sense has a connotation that meaning does not.

Sense:

a feeling that something is the case. synonyms: feeling, awareness, sensation, consciousness, recognition

The person is dealing with distance as an emotion, not a number of miles, and sense carries the connotation of feelings, yet meets the requirement of distinction. It is intuitively more appropriate, then, when dealing with feelings, and more than meets the need of meaning.

Solution 5:

In English, when speakers want to point out a specific meaning of a word when using it more than one way, they say: in the x sense of the word. So:

We were too distant (and not only in the geographical sense of the word) ..."

In a dictionary, a word can have several meanings, but the idiomatic expression is: sense of the word.