But suppose nobody had ever seen a cake that didn't have icing.
Wouldn't 'has icing' be part of the definition of the cake? Why would it be a more dispensible predicate than the predicate 'unmarried' is of 'bachelor'?
If I (and suppose for convenience everybody else) have only ever seen iced cakes, how can I be referring to anything other than a set of things that contains the predicate 'has icing'?
( Comma, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 21:59, archived)

because you've developed your own meaning of "cake"
whereas you didn't develop your own meaning of "bachelor" from observation, as there is only one variable to bachelor; married or unmarried. Cakes have many, many variables, which is why icing is not an intrinsic part of their dictionary definition
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:02, archived)

It wouldn't be more dispensible.
Unless society or some social group decided to extend their definition to include uniced cakes, then the definition would be unchanged.
In the same way, if society for whatever reason decided to include 'men with brown hair' or something in their definition of batchelor, then 'unmarried' would be dispensible.
( my other username is a porsche , posting shit pictures so you don't have to, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:03, archived)

Iced bachelor?

( The Cat's Mother Not a People Person., Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:04, archived)

To answer your original point
a cake without icing wouldn't lose the predicate; it would not be called a cake.
( Flapjack I spay a little mare for you, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:06, archived)

But that can't be right. We revise our meaning of words all the time to account for new experiences.
If I saw something that was exactly like a cake in all respects except that it wasn't iced, I'd remove 'is iced' from my list of cakey predicates, and from then on I'd mean something different when I said 'cake'.
( Comma, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:09, archived)

not really
if I saw a human body that had absolutely everything except a leg, I wouldn't call it a human. It's a cripple. A fucking one-legged spacker cripple cunt.
( Grrrmachine the indifference engine, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:11, archived)

Who else would?
No-one would have a clue what you were talking about. Until you popularised it, and then cake would not require icing.

Bachelor is an existing widely-used word for [man] + [is married]. The reason you don't talk about a married bachelor is because it's not useful communication.

Words are for communication, there's no logos behind them. They're only meaningful because they're useful; their meaning is their use.
( Flapjack I spay a little mare for you, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:19, archived)

On the flip side
some nouns have so many predicates that if you try to analyse them they all but disappear. "Game" is one. Yet people use them every day and know exactly what a game is.
( Flapjack I spay a little mare for you, Tue 23 Jun 2009, 22:24, archived)

i've to see icing on
a urinal cake
(rigby happened on (and with added toothache), Tue 23 Jun 2009, 23:02, archived)