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<blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9600691" data-attributes="member: 177">I meant here, in this discussion.&nbsp; Because otherwise, &quot;some people&quot; is an unverifiable assertion with characteristics the speaker gets to stipulate without challenge.&nbsp; How many are in this group of &quot;some&quot;?&nbsp; How severe is their behavior?&nbsp; Is the speaker appropriately interpreting the behavior of these people?&nbsp; We don't know. Maybe we have personal experience that agrees with the speaker's assessment.&nbsp; Or maybe our personal experience suggests that the &quot;some people&quot; are overblown.&nbsp; Maybe &quot;some people&quot; is this one guy in Altoona, or something.I personally have known some people who invoke &quot;some people&quot; based on one bad interaction they had recently - one person implies more in the population, and that's &quot;some&quot; right?.&nbsp; I've even known some people who make &quot;some people&quot; up out of whole cloth because they are more invested in winning the argument than truth.So, rhetorically, &quot;some people&quot; is pretty weak, unless we agree they exist, and on their characteristics.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Umbran, post: 9600691, member: 177"] I meant here, in [I]this[/I] discussion. Because otherwise, "some people" is an unverifiable assertion with characteristics the speaker gets to stipulate without challenge. How many are in this group of "some"? How severe is their behavior? Is the speaker appropriately interpreting the behavior of these people? We don't know. Maybe we have personal experience that agrees with the speaker's assessment. Or maybe our personal experience suggests that the "some people" are overblown. Maybe "some people" is this one guy in Altoona, or something. I personally have known [I]some people[/I] who invoke "some people" based on one bad interaction they had recently - one person implies more in the population, and that's "some" right?. I've even known [I]some people[/I] who make "some people" up out of whole cloth because they are more invested in winning the argument than truth. So, rhetorically, "some people" is pretty weak, unless we agree they exist, and on their characteristics. [/QUOTE]

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