this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Wetness is being saturated with water. Water is saturated by water by a base definition; you cannot be more saturated with something than literally being it, a 100% saturation value. Water is wet. And now so is the object in contact with it.
It's less consistent to the example to say that fire is burnt and transferring that burnt, and more that fire is hot and a material affected by fire is also hot. Fire is hot. And now so is the object in contact with it. Being burnt is a secondary reaction as a result of the primary transference of the heat properties in an overabundance. Much like your skin shriveling is a result of being wet for prolonged periods. It's a secondary reaction to the primary transferance of properties.
Water transfers its wetness, fire transfers its heat. Water is wet.
Unfortunately this is a flawed analogy.
What you're equating water wets water is that heat heats heat, which could make semantic sense, but is a useless statement. The same argument, made for other properties, also becomes ridiculous: "light brightens light", "scratching scratches the scratching", "aging ages time", etc.
Definitions are always imperfect, but some are imperfecter than others.
Also, see definition of henges; Stonehenge is not a henge, despite being the source of the word.
Heat and water are not analogous because heat is pure energy. Water is a physical liquid. You're laser focused on a single definition of a word that's used in many other ways. Anyone trying to tell you that water isn't wet is engaged in semantic foolery.
You're putting your finger on the entire argument there: words are used differently in different contexts, and thus mean different things. The whole discussion is banal.