Are Ghosts Real? (a poll)

[The Firebird]

Err... what? How is that a counterargument? But points for using the word 'coxswain' in a sentence.

Let me take this from the top. You started by doing that thing that polite folks should never do: be a grammar policeman. You then compounded your offence by committing the cardinal sin of misinterpreting the 'statutes' you were defending. Let's call that a metaphor for 'being wrong'. Now, I go out of my way to not be a grammar policeman... I make typos, or misremember idioms, etc. and I no doubt type stupid things frequently. Since I live in a glass house, etc. etc.

But when I see someone condescend to someone with a 'Well, ackshually...' on a point of grammar... and they're completely wrong... well, I'll comment on that.

And here we are.

You made an error. I have made many. When I do, I admit to them. You are bending over backwards and going to bizarre lengths to avoid admitting to a mistake. I would respect you more if you just said 'You know, this is the way I've always heard this term being used. I jumped the gun. Mea culpa.'.

It was my statement that was at question, and I'm willing to chalk it up to a miscommunication or a regional difference in the use of language. Maybe @Morrus is using it in a way more common in England? Certainly the statement "Only a person can imply something" does not match my understanding or usage of English...or recent, primarily American, examples here.

My claim was that a state of affairs, "the failure to claim Randi's prize", did not imply something.

In the examples, we have many 'name implies X', as in:
"[the name research university] implies..."

as well as others like "these badges imply X". No person necessary.

My construction is closest to "the absence of evidence does not imply evidence of absence" which is a quite common usage. As is "correlation does not imply causation"; again no person needed to imply things. (I suppose you could say these statements are trivially true because they are just saying that a state of affairs can't imply anything...I think this is misreading them).

---

All that said, the important bit from our exchange is that @Morrus did not mean that "the facts implied something". That was the claim I was responding to and so I had him wrong there. I'm happy to own that.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

It isn’t. It’s a joke.

Thank you!

Now this is a response I can get behind. Well-played.

 

[Zardnaar]

Main argument for ghosts existing? Where the F do my socks go?

Could also involve pyramids!!!!

 

[ColinChapman]

Main argument for ghosts existing? Where the F do my socks go?

Could also involve pyramids!!!!

Also, I'm not saying it's aliens, but...

 

[Zardnaar]

Also, I'm not saying it's aliens, but...

Heh yeah.

Historians generally are not engineers and casuals don't really understand what ancient people could do.

Ergo Aliens.

 

[Umbran]

Certainly the statement "Only a person can imply something" does not match my understanding or usage of English...or recent, primarily American, examples here.

Yes, but that same dictionary will tell you that one of the definitions of "literally" is literally not literally. So...

The fact that it is commonly used, even considered proper usage, doesn't mean it makes sense when you think about it for any length of time.

 

[trappedslider]

 

[The Firebird]

Yes, but that same dictionary will tell you that one of the definitions of "literally" is literally not literally. So...

The fact that it is commonly used, even considered proper usage, doesn't mean it makes sense when you think about it for any length of time.

Is there a dictionary that supports the idea "only a person can imply something"? I've literally never seen that claim before.

 

[Cadence]

Is A->B, read as "A implies B", a common thing in math and symbolic logic? I wonder if use of the word in other contexts is related to the mathiness of the person using it.

(Is nature still allowed to abhor a vacuum? Is a thread grabbing a tangent to stay alive a related thing?)

 

[Ryujin]

Is there a dictionary that supports the idea "only a person can imply something"? I've literally never seen that claim before.

Quite the opposite, I would think. From Mirriam Webster:

Infer vs. Imply: Usage Guide

Sir Thomas More is the first writer known to have used both infer and imply in their approved senses in 1528 (with infer meaning "to deduce from facts" and imply meaning "to hint at"). He is also the first to have used infer in a sense close in meaning to imply (1533). Both of these uses of infer coexisted without comment until some time around the end of World War I. Since then, the "indicate" and "hint or suggest" meanings of infer have been frequently condemned as an undesirable blurring of a useful distinction. The actual blurring has been done by the commentators. The "indicate" sense of infer, descended from More's use of 1533, does not occur with a personal subject. When objections arose, they were to a use with a personal subject (which is now considered a use of the "suggest, hint" sense of infer). Since dictionaries did not recognize this use specifically, the objectors assumed that the "indicate" sense was the one they found illogical, even though it had been in respectable use for four centuries. The actual usage condemned was a spoken one never used in logical discourse. At present the condemned "suggest, hint" sense is found in print chiefly in letters to the editor and other informal prose, not in serious intellectual writing. The controversy over the "suggest, hint" sense has apparently reduced the frequency with which the "indicate" sense of infer is used.