On Thursday, August 15, 2002, at 03:57 PM, Mike Scott wrote: > Steven Brust <skzb at dreamcafe.com> writes: > >> Why? That is, what does "it is to be hoped" mean? It is to be hoped >> by *whom*? By persons unknown? Why say that? By you? Then say, "I >> hope." By me? Then say, "You should hope." By all right-thinking >> people? Then say that. Why this insistence on vagueness? > > Vagueness is one of the uses of language, which is full of > constructions that allow one to be precise about the bits you *want* > to be precise about, and imprecise where it doesn't matter. It's also > quite useful to be able to express the concept using three syllables > rather than the twelve required for "it is to be hoped by all > right-thinking people". > > Note that Cato, one of the most famous orators in history, didn't feel > it necessary to specify exactly *who* should be destroying Carthage > when deploying a genuine gerundive to (literally) devastating effect. That's right! Also, probably in the mists of prehistory, when one caveman was asked where he killed the big nasty beast, he probably just said, "over there, somewhere" and awed his fellow cave people with the knowledge he went into the "unknown" to kill this "monster" (and inventing a whole book genre in the process!)