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From: pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: Is Common Sense Explicit or Implicit?
Message-ID: <Cx9HAB.A28@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCC Public Access
References: <Cwv4GJ.8qy@spss.com> <CwyFA4.3zx@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <CwyupB.2Ax@spss.com> <1994Oct5.093435.10876@unix.brighton.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 6 Oct 1994 17:15:46 GMT
Lines: 52

In article <1994Oct5.093435.10876@unix.brighton.ac.uk>,
shute <mjs14@unix.brighton.ac.uk> wrote:
>>In article <CwyFA4.3zx@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca>,
>>Andrzej Pindor <pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> wrote:
>>>I also know about statistical distributions, but "men are stronger than
>>>women" may mean either "_all_ men are stronger than _all_ women" or
>>>"on average men are stronger than women", may it not? Few other 
>>>variations are also possible, of course. Unless you can show
>>>convincingly why the first interpretation should be more obvious than
>>>the second, please explain what makes you think that I meant the variant
>>>which '*isn't* "scientifically true"'? 
>
>In article <CwyupB.2Ax@spss.com> markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>>Because there is no such variant; if you meant "on average" you should 
>>have said so.  
>
>Of course, Andrzej could equally well reply that if he had meant "all"
>then he should have said so.
>
How about '...then he _would_ have said so'?  Actually I have made just
this reply.

>So his plea of being guilty of negligent ambiguity in his use of
>the English language would seem to be correct, and I hereby reduce his
>term to a one year's suspended sentence  :-)   :-)
>
I only plead guilty of assuming a certain level of intelligence and of good
will on the part of other discutants. Does it incerase my punishment or
perhaps reduce it (hopefully)?

>What and excellent illustration of the point this has become, though!
>That ambiguity, and laxness in the way that all humans seem to use
>natural languages, is so prevalent that we must consider it no accident.
>That ambiguity and laxness of language use is not a bug, but a feature.
>That we are able to use natural language as such a powerful tool for
>doing its work *because* it can be so imprecise and unscientific at times,
>not *despite* it.

Largely agree, although due to you being so imprecise, this may be 
an illusion :-).

>-- 
>
>Malcolm SHUTE.         (The AM Mollusc:   v_@_ )        Disclaimer: all
>

Andrzej
-- 
Andrzej Pindor                        The foolish reject what they see and 
University of Toronto                 not what they think; the wise reject
Instructional and Research Computing  what they think and not what they see.
pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca                           Huang Po
