Mike Scott writes:
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".
You can be precisely vague; that is, vague by intent, and precise by
intent. But being vague out of laziness does not aid communication.
Since English lacks a direct translation for Spanish's "ojal?", one
could instead just use "god willing" (or "luck willing", if you're
allergic to god), in lieu of "hopefully". Same number of syllables,
even.
One idiom i'm trying to excise from my diction is "sort of/kind of" as
a poor substitute for "somewhat". "An eel is a kind of fish" is OK,
"a dolphin is kind of like a fish" is not.
rone
--
{Reagan's} presidency always reminded me of a remark made by a woman to
Heywood Broun following Secretariat's victory in the Triple Crown. After the
trauma of Vietnam and Watergate, she said, Secretariat had "restored her faith
in humanity." I like to think Reagan was the Secretariat of the eighties.
- Garry Trudeau