Friday, February 5, 2010
Vague Sentence
An example from everyday life of a vague sentence is asking for the time and getting a response like “It’s half past three”, “It’s about half past three” or “It’s almost half past three”. All of these answers although acceptable in most situations are very vague once looked at closer. I heard this sentence just the other day when I asked someone what time it was. At first the answer, its almost half past three, seemed correct but only to find about five minuets later that the person’s opinion of what almost half past three meant was a lot different of a time then what I think of when someone tells me it’s half past three. These answers are considered to be vague sentences because there are many different ways to understand the sentence and we can’t settle on one of them without the speaker making it clearer. Without an exact time the statements are vague and could mean very different things to many different people.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It is funny how you mention how most people will just say things like, “it is half past three,” when it really a few minutes different. You never really think about it too often, but I think people tend to do this a lot more than we might think. Whether it is a matter of convenience or sheer laziness, is up for debate. While this might not be that big of an issue for most people, as it really shouldn’t be, it can present a bit of a problem for those running on very exact schedules. For example, if your boss told you not to be a minute late to work, and you arrived “right about 8am,” which actually meant 8:02, you would be fired.
ReplyDelete