ST Alpha - "I'm in favor of the [Quintilian] quote that the purpose of language is to make it impossible to be misunderstood. If someone's using "group"" (Reading a Post)

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In response to "As a scientist*, I must protest: "cohort" does not mean the same thing as "group."" by ReluctantCynic

I'm in favor of the [Quintilian] quote that the purpose of language is to make it impossible to be misunderstood. If someone's using "group"

Posted by Max Dec 21 '23, 08:56

and the listener has to ask "which group"? then the absolute of "just say group" is faulty. Someone may sound pretentious when they say cohort but it drives me crazy when I have to waste my time trying to get clarification on something that could have been clearly stated in the first place.

(I might use cohort in a very specific case of a subset of a "team" but this particular word isn't the hill I plan to die on.)

Responses:

I love that. - ReluctantCynic Dec 21, 09:03 1
- Neil deGrasse Tyson had a similar thought on Hot Ones that I try to remember when dealing with annoying gaming forum users - Max Dec 21, 09:09 [youtube]

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I'm in favor of the [Quintilian] quote that the purpose of language is to make it impossible to be misunderstood. If someone's using "group"

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