Web site accompanying the book Not Exactly: in Praise of Vagueness, by Kees van Deemter, Oxford University Press, Jan. 2010.


Vagueness illustrated by news items


-- In May 2011, the British politician Ken Clark was fiercely criticised, from all political sides, when he talked about serious rape in a radio interview. Clark's critics argued that his wording implied that some rapes were not serious. Whatever the political merits of Clark's proposal, this criticism is clearly undeserved from a linguistic point of view: the criticism suggests a misunderstanding of the fundamental mechanisms that underly the interpretation of gradable words. The background to this story can be found here. I've written the following commentary . The media storm only subsided when Clark publicly apologised. (As an aside: I believe that when a Tory minister proposes a liberal policy, progressive people ought to cheer him on.)

-- Vagueness in the economic rescue plan for Greece as discussed in The Economist, 20 Feb. 2010. ("Details would be harder than generalities for member states to agree on").

-- Reasonable force. Suppose you're beaten to death after being caught burgling someone's house. Will your killers go to jail? At present, this is impossible to predict, because the law leave some key concepts in this area (e.g. reasonable force, proportionate force) intentionally vague. (BBC News, 21 Dec. 2009)

-- Sorites and elections. Given that it is unlikely that one vote can make the difference, why do we vote at all? -- A political scientist's answer. (Review of Richard Tuck's "Free Riding", by David Runciman.)

-- What does a politician mean when he states that society needs to ``guard against too much risk being concentrated in one firm''? -- This is a classic example of vague language use in politics: before proposing a specific policy, you float a vague idea. How you fill in the details of your policy will depend on how the vague idea was received. (The Guardian, 22 Jan 2010.)

-- A court case concerning the sale of a vintage racing car . The case hinged on the question whether the car was still "the same car" after numerous repairs and replacements. (With thanks to Graeme Forbes for uncovering the story.)

-- Is Pluto a planet? According to the definition used by astronomers since 2006, it is not. See also various Wikipedia entries, including this one.

-- Olympic gender testing teaches us that even sex is not a crisp concept. See also this Wikipedia article on androgen insensitivity. Gender testing was hotly debated (and badly mis-managed) once again in connection with the 2009 Athletics World Championships . The real question, I believe, is whether having separate sporting events for men and for women is a good idea.

-- Do the British military have enough helicopters in Afghanistan? See how all sides of the debate cling to the assumption that this question must allow a clear answer. But does it? (BBC News, 22 July 2009.)

-- The 45-minute claim concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Note how crucial "hedges" such as 'indicates that' and 'could be' disappeared from the original documents. Vagueness is implicated in the disappeared expressions. (For example, how strong does your evidence have to be before you can justly claim that a certain conclusion is `indicated'?)

-- A wealthy man, said HL Mencken, is one who earns $100 a year more than his brother-in-law. An opinion piece about relative poverty.

-- The Paradox of the Heap (also known as sorites) voted one of the 10 great unsolved problems of science. The paradox is number 5 in the list.


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