Qualifying Statements

The art of qualifying statements is something that nearly every politician has mastered. I have used it myself, notably in my Thoughts on Harry Potter before reading Book 7. Nothing I said in that post turned out to be incorrect. I referenced things such as "the apparent [emphasis added] murder of Albus Dumbledore," and argued that Snape was "not as [emphasis added] evil as it would seem."

In the first case, my "apparent" qualifier was warranted; it is revealed in The Deathly Hallows that "murder" is a bad characterization of what happened. In the second case, it turns out that my qualifier was not needed at all, and my proposition was completely correct.

I was having a conversation with my friend the other day, and he asked me a question about where technology was going. My response was so well qualified that, if examined closely, it conveyed no information at all; at most, it may have conveyed an opinion, but nothing more. I find it interesting how anything can be said truthfully as long as it is properly qualified.