It’s the reader’s responsibility to read your words, and read all your words, and not to imagine other words. Recently, someone paraphrased a remark of mine with two “maybe”’s I had used deleted and a “necessarily” I hadn’t used inserted. Was that my fault?
As an attorney, my experience is that the distinction between literal words and communicated meaning is very artificial. One canon of statutory construction is the absurdity principle (between two possible meanings, pick the one that isn’t absurd). But that relies on context beyond the words to figure out what is absurd. Eloquent version of this point here.
Now the thing with that logic is that 97% of the world is made up of idiots (Probably a little higher than that, actually.)
I do agree that it’s their fault if they misquote it, not your own, but let’s say you put an unclear statement in a self help book. Those books are generally read by the, ah, lower 40th percentile (Or around thereabouts), or just by really sad people- either way, they’re more emotionally unstable than normal.
Now that we have the perfect conditions for a blowup, let’s say you said something like ‘It’s your responsibility to be happy’ in that book, meaning that you and only you can make yourself happy. Your emotionally unstable reader, however, read it as it was said and took a huge hit to their self-confidence.
Do you see how it isn’t always the reader’s job?
ETA: What’s unclear about “not on facts alone”?
It’s the reader’s responsibility to read your words, and read all your words, and not to imagine other words. Recently, someone paraphrased a remark of mine with two “maybe”’s I had used deleted and a “necessarily” I hadn’t used inserted. Was that my fault?
Beware of expecting short inferential distances.
One has to grasp literal meaning before inference even kicks in.
As an attorney, my experience is that the distinction between literal words and communicated meaning is very artificial. One canon of statutory construction is the absurdity principle (between two possible meanings, pick the one that isn’t absurd). But that relies on context beyond the words to figure out what is absurd. Eloquent version of this point here.
If people insist on drawing inferences from what was never intended as a hint...what can you do?
‘On hearing of the death of a Turkish ambassador, Talleyrand is supposed to have said: “I wonder what he meant by that?”’
Now the thing with that logic is that 97% of the world is made up of idiots (Probably a little higher than that, actually.) I do agree that it’s their fault if they misquote it, not your own, but let’s say you put an unclear statement in a self help book. Those books are generally read by the, ah, lower 40th percentile (Or around thereabouts), or just by really sad people- either way, they’re more emotionally unstable than normal. Now that we have the perfect conditions for a blowup, let’s say you said something like ‘It’s your responsibility to be happy’ in that book, meaning that you and only you can make yourself happy. Your emotionally unstable reader, however, read it as it was said and took a huge hit to their self-confidence. Do you see how it isn’t always the reader’s job?
Strangely enough, I never said it was...
For your reference, I have no idea what Lauryn is talking about.