Locke the front door! It's Richards!

Locke claims, "Since sounds have no natural connection with our ideas, but have all their signification from the arbitrary imposition of men, the doubtfulness and uncertainty of their signification, which is the imperfection we here are speaking of, has its cause more on the ideas they stand for..." (Locke 817).

In other words, because sounds bare no connection to the ideas man constructs, men randomly assign signification for the sake of having a word signify an idea--despite how "uncertain" the word may be.

Richards adapts a kind of evolved definition from Locke's argument.  He states, "We have to distinguish as always between Thoughts and Things...Words, as everyone knows, mean nothing by themselves, although the belief that they did was once equally universal.  It is only when a thinker makes use of them that they stand for anything, or, in one sense, have 'meaning'" (Richards 1274).

In other words, Richards takes an opposite approach, suggesting that words are instruments in which the "thinker" defines and uses.

Putting these two ideologies in conversation with each other, the common element between the two derives from the agency of men.  I often wonder how language originally came to exist.  Cavemen drew pictures which turned into words which inevitably turned into sound--the language we all know and love today.  At least, I assume that's the way it happened.  The man element seems to irritate Locke's views of signification while it reinforces Richards stance; a stance I believe is merely Locke's argument adjusted accordingly.

Locke finds that man's "arbitrary imposition" creates "imperfections" in language, and therefore challenges the integrity of words and their signification.  Richards believes that "words mean nothing by themselves" and therefore the agency of men gives words their signification.  So the big question I've asked once before:
When does a word become a word?  Men creates the word, but when and how?

Consider mean girls and the word "fetch."