Re:Red Light Green Light
by jccalhoun on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @10:00AM
(#30163311)
The one thing that was drummed into my head in grad school was to define your terms. I often ask students "How much is 'most?'" as in "most people think X." Technically 50.1% would be "most" but when I say "most" I generally think closer to 75% or more. So people could think they are disagreeing over whether "most people think x" is true but they are really disagreeing over the definition of "most."
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Re:Red Light Green Light
by dragonwriter on Tuesday February 01, 2022 @10:05AM
(#30163402)
Communication is improved if, rather than redefining terms in common use, you just use the terms in common use that already mean what you want. So if you mean “at least 75%”, just say “at least 75%” rather than “most”, especially if you are negating it in a condition where negating it with the common definition would not be true.