Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Chapter 8
When reading about general claims and their contradictories I think about all the sales pitches we hear on TV. The chapter explains that terms such as all, some, no and only are “purposely vague.” All can mean everything, but can be as few as one. Some can mean a percentage of the group, but can again be as few as one. On example that comes to mind as it refers to all statements is a car commercial my wife and I saw a few years back. We were looking for a new car, and we heard a commercial that said something to the effect of, All 2007 Honda Civics LXs are on sale at xx,xxx price and 0% financing. This is exactly what we had been looking for, so we went down to the lot that weekend. What we found was a used car that had a ton of miles on it. They didn’t have any other 2007s on the lot, so the advertisement wasn’t false but it was misleading.
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Hi Journey,
ReplyDeleteThis post on Chapter 8 is very clear and easy to understand. I like how the post doesn't just state facts and quotes from the book; rather, it incorporates real life examples that make some of these complex ideas a little easier to understand. Your post also ties back into the advertisement post we did; now, however, you are discussing misleading advertisements instead of false advertisements. These types of misleading arguments with vague words, such as all and some, are all over the internet and on TV. Though it is harder to recognize misleading claims, it is important to understand the kinds of words and phrases that are often used. Good job!
I enjoyed reading your post; your summary of the chapter was well thought out and gave me a lot of information I could use in my day-to-day life. Your telling of the chapter allowed me to better understand the concepts that the chapter spoke of and put the chapter in a more real world setting. Your examples were well thought out and shared a similar idea to my own. The best part of your post was defiantly the way you present your examples of advertisements, which made it easy to understand, and had an interesting ending to it. Overall I enjoyed your post and hope you keep up the good work.
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