{"id":44598,"date":"2015-04-23T03:36:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T03:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=44598"},"modified":"2015-04-23T03:36:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T03:36:42","slug":"language-language-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=44598","title":{"rendered":"Language, language, please!"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron<\/strong> \u2013 unclear language gives an out-of-focus snapshot of reality, estimative language hopes to facilitate precision ]
\n. <\/p>\n

Take a quick look, then skip to the rest of this post & come back later. Unless you already know this thing by heart, and perhaps nurse an inordinate hatred for it. In which case you can skip the whole post — we may even see eye to eye already..<\/p>\n

\"NIE<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

**<\/p>\n

In light of the above, I was a tad surprised to read these words in Time<\/a> this morning:<\/p>\n

\u201cDocuments were also found and they prove, without any ambiguity, that the individual was preparing an imminent attack, in all probability, against one or two churches,\u201d Cazeneuve said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Somehow the combination of \u201cwithout any ambiguity\u201d and \u201cin all probability\u201d didn\u2019t quite mesh. But the original speaker was French, so I did whatever diligence I could muster, and found this<\/a>, selon<\/em> Minister Cazeneuve<\/strong>: <\/p>\n

Les perquisitions men\u00e9es \u00e0 son domicile ont permis de retrouver, outre de l’armement et du mat\u00e9riel de vid\u00e9o, des \u00e9crits \u00ab \u00e9tablissant sans ambigu\u00eft\u00e9 que l’individu projetait de commettre un attentat, vraisemblablement contre une ou deux \u00e9glises \u00bb, a pr\u00e9cis\u00e9 Bernard Cazeneuve. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently Le Monde<\/em> viewed Cazeneuve as having \u201cclarified\u201d the matter, bringing it to precision.. And I suppose that means we should read the Minister’s words as indicating that the intention to attack was proven “without ambiguity” while the targeting of “one or two” churches was — my French is rusty, so I asked Larousse<\/a> — likely, convincing<\/em>, or plausible<\/em>.<\/p>\n

All of which is by way of remarking on the necessity for — and inherent problems arising regarding — what\u2019s called \u201cestimative language\u201d. Problems which may be doubly obscure in translation.<\/p>\n

Unless someone suggests a “plausible” reference from Walsingham<\/strong>, Marlowe <\/strong>or Shakespeare<\/strong>, a decent starting point for consideration is to be found in Sherman Kent<\/strong>\u2019s 1964 Words of Estimative Probability<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It should not come as a surprise that the fact is far from the ideal, that considerable difficulty attends both the fitting of a phrase to the estimators’ meaning and the extracting of that meaning by the consumer. Indeed, from the vantage point of almost fourteen years of experience, the difficulties seem practically insurmountable.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For a more recent take on the matter, and to see whether we’re surmounting the insurmountable yet, there\u2019s always the chart at the head of this post, taken from the 2007 NIE on Prospects for Iraq\u2019s Stability<\/a> — something we should still be worrying about eight years later, no?<\/p>\n

**<\/p>\n

No sense in beating about the bush: poets can handle this sort of thing better than layfolk, but then \u2013 what\u2019s the use? Who can read poetry any more?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ by Charles Cameron \u2013 unclear language gives an out-of-focus snapshot of reality, estimative language hopes to facilitate precision ] . Take a quick look, then skip to the rest of this post & come back later. Unless you already know this thing by heart, and perhaps nurse an inordinate hatred for it. In which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[526,239,47,630,741,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-charles-cameron","category-ic","category-intelligence","category-language","category-poetry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44598"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44610,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44598\/revisions\/44610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}