would then need to be pursued, and so on. Freeing English of the Grelling–Nelson paradox entails considerably more modification to the language than mere refinements of the definitions of "autological" and "heterological", which need not even be in the language for the paradox to arise. The scope of these obstacles for English is comparable to that of Russell's paradox for mathematics founded on sets. Arbitrary cases One may also ask whether "autological" is autological. It can be chosen consistently to be either: if we say that "autological" is autological and then ask whether it applies to itself, then yes, it does, and thus is autological; if we say that "autological" is not autological and then ask whether it applies to itself, then no, it does not, and thus is not autological. This is the opposite of the situation for heterological: while "heterological" logically cannot be autological or heterological, "autological" can be either. (It cannot be both, as the category of autological and heterological cannot overlap.) In logical terms, the situation for "autological" is: while the situation for "heterological" is: Ambiguous cases One may also ask whether "loud" is autological or heterological. If said loudly, "loud" is autological; otherwise, it is heterological. This shows that some adjectives cannot be unambiguously classified as autological or heterological. Newhard sought to eliminate this problem by taking Grelling's Paradox to deal specifically with word types as opposed to word tokens. Similarities with Russell's paradox The Grelling–Nelson paradox can be translated into Bertrand Russell's famous paradox in the following way. First, one must identify each adjective with the set of objects to which that adjective applies. So, for example, the adjective "red" is equated with the set of all red objects. In this way, the adjective "pronounceable" is equated with the set of all pronounceable things, one of which is the word "pronounceable" itself. Thus, an autological word is understood as a set, one of whose elements is the set itself. The question of whether the word "heterological" is heterological becomes the question of whether the set of all sets which do not contain themselves contains itself. See also List of paradoxes Metamagical Themas Use–mention distinction Liar paradox Notes References Also in: External links Autological words Self-referential paradoxes 1908 introductions