The Confusing Flexibility Of Words

Our language is highly complex. If each word had only one potential meaning which we all agreed, effective communication would be more likely. However, most words have more than one meaning.

Consider the multiple meanings of such words as freedom, obscenity, and happiness. These multiple meanings can create serious problems in determining the worth of an argument. for example, when someone argues that a magazine should not be published because it is obscene, you cannot evaluate the argument until you know what the writer means by "obscene." In this belief argument, it is easy to find the conclusion and the supporting reason, but the quality of the reasoning is difficult to judge because of the ambiguous use of obscene. Thus, even when you can identify the basic structure of what others are saying, you still struggle with meaning of certain words in that structure. A warning - we often misunderstand what we read or hear because we presume that the meaning of words is obvious.

Whenever you are reading or listening, force yourself to search for ambiguity; otherwise, you may simply miss the point. A term or phrase is ambiguous when its meaning is so uncertain in the context of the argument we are examining that we need further clarification before we can judge the adequacy of the reasoning.